ANENDRA SINGH
There's a fine line between bad and good luck.
But which side of the fine line sportspeople fall often depends on how persistent they are through the bad patches. If they continue to persevere then the chances are that when good luck comes around they will be there to receive
it.
When SportToday contacted some of the Hawke's Bay Ramblers Club riders competing at the 2006 Lion Foundation National Road Championship in Palmerston, north of Dunedin, last night there was no shortage of luck stories.
But one bittersweet story stood out - that pertaining to Roy van Panhuys and Peter Gavin.
Bike Hawke's Bay cycling development officer and Ramblers Cycling Club manager Ivar Hopman had told SportToday, on Thursday, that van Panhuys had won silver in the Vet 5 (55 to 60 year-old grade), 20km race in the timetrials with Gavin finishing fourth.
But come prizegiving time that evening van Panhuys, a Napier lawyer, was in for a rude shock.
"The organisers had stuffed up the times and Roy found he wasn't a silver medallist," explained Hopman, as the car he was travelling in, towing 24 bicycles in a trailer, snaked its way back to the top of South Island yesterday.
However, van Panhuys' dismay turned to ecstasy for Gavin, who found himself on the podium for bronze after his clubmate's relegation elevated his status by one.
"I had already left Palmerston for my motel in Dunedin. I was about to have my shower when Ivar rang, so I missed out on getting on the podium to receive my medal," said Gavin, a Napier computer software writer, minutes before boarding his flight back from Dunedin Airport yesterday.
Commiserating with van Panhuys' predicament, the 55-year-old also castigated the organisers.
"It was embarrassing for them too. I suspect they didn't do the times correctly. I was fourth and my time matched the print-out results posted up later so I didn't expect anything different," he said, claiming the organisers at first said van Panhuys, who could not be contacted last night, was sixth but later moved to fifth position.
All that aside Gavin was elated with his first nationals medal in 20 years of cycling.
"It was great considering only two months ago I was in the coronary unit for heart problems," said Gavin, whose cardiologists reckon he shouldn't exert himself so much.
"I'm still doing it and now I've got a medal. I push myself hard but I have a handle on things," said Gavin, who trains 12 hours a week, covering 300km.
Yesterday, in the final day of the championships, van Panhuys and Gavin finished seventh and eighth respectively in their veterans' road race grade.
It was lean pickings for Hawke's Bay riders in the road races at the weekend - two bronze medals on Saturday in the veteran grades.
Kerry Harford claimed his medal in the Veteran II man's 109.8km event, adding to the silver he won in Thursday's timetrial.
The other medal went to Marg Radisch, who competed in the Vet I 73.2km race, complementing it with her timetrial bronze on Thursday.
"We had no road race medals last year but we have two this year so we're really happy," said Hopman, who is travelling with Rambler Steve Watson, of Hastings, and his daughter, Sarah, and won't arrive by road into Hastings until early tomorrow morning.
Havelock North riders Sean Joyce, Jed Usherwood, Austen Thomson and Ben McFadyen, and Dartmoor's Rory MacKenzie were unplaced in the under-17 road race yesterday, with Thomson the best but eight minutes off the pace.
But the unlucky rider was MacKenzie's elder brother, Ali, who sat in the leading bunch of four to six riders until 3 1/2 laps into the six-lap, 73.2km race, when a tri-spoke in the rear wheel snapped in the first lap when he rode over a railway line. The portruding spoke rubbed on the brake, slowing the bike down even more in the headwind.
"I didn't know what was wrong but I heard a rattling noise and carried on going," said the former Taradale High School pupil.
MacKenzie, who finished second to last in the field, prefers timetrial racing but, with more training after his one week's holiday in the West Coast, believes he can make an impact in road racing as well.
The podium also proved elusive for Waipukurau's former world champion rider, Westley Gough, in the under-19, 109km race.
ANENDRA SINGH
There's a fine line between bad and good luck.
But which side of the fine line sportspeople fall often depends on how persistent they are through the bad patches. If they continue to persevere then the chances are that when good luck comes around they will be there to receive
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