Katrina, as you all will know by now was riding in the Scottish Championships at the weekend. On Friday night she competed in the 500m Sprint event, but due to the fact that she can't start to save herself was easily beaten by Kate Cullin, a rider who has been specialising on the track for a couple of years now.
Katrina however got her revenge on Saturday in the 3000m pursuit. Qualifying was againt the clock, with the 4 best riders going into the semi's. Katrina qualified quickest and went into the next round where she caught her oponent in the 4th lap.
The final saw her up against Kate Cullin of the City of Edinburgh cycling team again. Ivor Reid had been helping Katrina out, by lending her a disc wheel and Aero helmet, and by also explaining to her how to approach the event, after all this was the first time Katrina had competed in a pursuit. Ivor had set out lap schedules for her and gave her time checks along the way. In the final they decided to that because of Katrina's bad start she should start steadily, get comfy in the second lap and get up to speed in the following laps, they also decided that if everything was going well Katrina should let rip in the last 5 laps.
As expected kate Cullin started fast and looked as if she was going to catch Katrina, in fact at one point both riders where in the same straight, It wasn't looking too good for Katrina, but Ivor showed his experience and kept Katrina to the previously agreed lap schedule, with 5 laps to go he let her loose and Katrina took off, in the next lap she had pulled back over 1 second on Kate and finally managed to finish 5 seconds in front of her, a large margin in an event that is measured to the 100th of a second. More impresive was that Katrina had taken the Scottish record, a record that had stood since 1996, breaking it by nearly 3 seconds
Spectators at the race said that it was one of the most exiting races that they had seen in a long time, and that throught the race they were on the edge of their seats.
Katrina's next race's are at the Brittish Champs next week, this will be a different class of event with all the current brittish team being present and competing in what will become the qualifications for the olypics.
I'm sure she will hold her own :wink:
