By Les Clarke
Safi - Pasta Zara Manhattan's Australian rider Rochelle Gilmore today set a new women's speed record behind a derny at Sydney's Dunc Gray Velodrome. 23-year-old Gilmore, who has returned to Australia from a strong women's world cup campaign hit 66km/h on the boards of Dunc Gray, enjoying some speed training ahead of next weekend's Sydney Thousand track carnival. Gilmore will be riding the Sydney Thousand, and believes the promotion of women's cycling within the carnival programme can only be of benefit to female riders.
Gilmore is currently "in the middle of a pretty heavy workload" and believes it's a little too early to gauge her form for the beginning of the track season, but says she is "excited to see how I freshen up after Oceanias [Oceania Games], when I get to have a few down days; at the moment it's just loading up, day after day."
The Sydney rider, who has re-signed with Italian professional women's road team Safi - Pasta Zara Manhattan has just started her preparations for the track season, having spent recent weeks building up a good road base. She'll be targetting the points and road races at next year's Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, doing an individual Commonwealth Games qualifying trial in Adelaide on December 14 before "preparing specifically for track and road at the Commonwealth Games," with any racing between then and the Games being used as preparation.
Gilmore's confident of selection for the Australian team for both road and track at the Commonwealth Games, and after the disppointment of missing out on a world championships road race berth, says she wouldn't be able to to believe it if she's not selected for the squad. After today's display of speed it's apparent her form's heading in the right direction, and all looks good for a summer of strong performances.
