Move over Enid Blyton, West Australian cyclist Conor Leahy has delivered his own version of the famous five.
Leahy stretched his hold on the elite men’s individual pursuit national championship to five consecutive years at the 2024 AusCycling Track National Championships in Brisbane on Saturday.
The 24-year-old was pushed all the way by Queensland’s James Moriarty, who held an advantage of more than two seconds at the halfway mark of the 4000-metre event.
Leahy responded to calls by coach Rohan Wight to up the pace and began to slowly eat away at Moriarty’s lead.
With two laps to go, the race was dead even, and as the bell sounded for the final lap the lead flipped to Leahy for the first time.
At the finish, the winning margin extended to 1.922 seconds, with the five-time champion finishing in a time of 4min 9.367sec to Moriarty’s 4:11.289.
Leahy’s WA teammate John Carter overcame Tasmanian Josh Duffy to claim bronze.
“This track has always treated me well and obviously the individual pursuit is one of my favourite events,'' said Leahy, a dual Commonwealth Games bronze medallist.
"To be able to come here every year and sort of test myself against some of my teammates every year, who I know are moving really well for some events coming up.''
Western Australian Matthew Richardson continued his hot start to 2024 by winning the elite men’s sprint national championship at the Anna Meares Velodrome.
The fastest sprinter in Australia was in no mood to play around and simply had another level of speed to call on compared with his rivals.
ARA Australian Cycling Team teammate Leigh Hoffman went deep to defeat Matthew Glaetzer in an epic semi-final duel and finished with the silver medal.
Thomas Cornish finished off a visibly-fatigued Glaetzer to claim bronze.
Rising Victorian sprint star Alessia McCaig ticked off another major personal milestone by defending her elite women’s keirin national championship.
McCaig sped past Queenslander Kristina Clonan in the final straight to grab a huge upset win against the dominant force in Australian women’s sprinting since 2020.
NSW's Selina Ho picked up the bronze.
In another surprise, South Australian Alli Anderson capitalised on an attacking move with two international riders to win the elite women’s scratch race national championship.
Anderson was unaware of her first individual national title until given the message as she exited the track.
The 20-year-old Adelaide rider finished with the bronze medal behind Ireland’s Lara Gillespie and Czech Republic’s Petra Sevcikova.
In other results, ACT rider Lauren Bates claimed the junior women’s scratch race title, and South Australia's Tayte Ryan defended the junior men's sprint title.
South Australian rising star Wil Holmes smashed the junior men’s individual pursuit national record by five seconds.
The 18-year-old blew the doors off Cameron Rogers’ previous benchmark of 3:13.271 finishing in 3:08.181, a time just one second outside the world record of 3:07.092.
