Amy Cure wins madison at Oceania Track Cycling Championships

Tasmanian cyclist Amy Cure has capped off her golden run at the Oceania Track Cycling Championships by completing a hat-trick of dominant performances.West Pine's 26-year-old dual Olympian had already won both the omnium and points race by sizeable margins but went a step further in the last race on the elite women's program in the New Zealand city of Invercargill.Cure teamed up with South Australian Alexandra Manly in the madison, to establish a formidable points total of 77 - more than three times the 25 of New Zealand silver medallists Michaela Drummond and Jessie Hodges.

Amy Cure dominating Oceania Track Cycling Championships in Invercargill

Another dominant performance has seen Tasmania's dual Olympian Amy Cure add the points race to her omnium success at the Oceania Track Cycling Championships in New Zealand.

A former world champion in the points race, the West Pine 26-year-old showed her experience in Invercargill by securing points in seven of the eight sprints and winning four including the double-points finish.

Amy Cure wins a gold medal at the Oceania Track Championships in New Zealand

West Pine's Amy Cure has dominated from start to finish to take out the gold medal in the omnium at the Oceania Track Championships in New Zealand on Thursday night.

The 26-year-old began the four-discipline event with wins in the scratch, tempo and elimination races, giving her a 14-point buffer on her nearest rival, New Zealand's Michaela Drummond heading into the points race.

Cure extended her lead by winning three of the first six sprints in the 20km race to build an unassailable margin and eventually finished second across the line to end the night with 186 points, 49 clear of Drummond.

The win was Cure's second Oceania omnium title after her first success in 2016.

South Australian Olympia Aldersey takes home world champ rowing gold, sets sights on 2020 Tokyo Olympics

South Australian rower Olympia Aldersey has had a golden day in Austria not only winning her first senior World Rowing Championship gold medal, but qualifying for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

A member of Australia’s Women’s Four alongside Lucy Stephan, Sarah Hawe and Katrina Werry, the crew went undefeated throughout the regatta to claim the top honours.

By making the A-Final the Australians qualified the boat berth for the Olympics and by winning gold, will head to Tokyo with the No. 1 ranked boat in the world.

The sky is the limit for Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva

The memories, the honour, wearing the green and gold and competing for your country is something all athletes dream about.

Last year, at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva was just 16 years old and competing in her first major Senior International event.

“Being part of the 469 athlete strong team across all sporting disciplines, one of ten in the gymnastics team, one of three RG gymnasts, every aspect of being in the athlete village and standing on a podium wearing Green and Gold were all moments to remember,” Kiroi-Bogatyreva said.--

Former Australia defender Kate Shimmin switches allegiance to join full-time England netball programme

Former Australia defender Kate Shimmin is the surprise inclusion in new England head coach Jess Thirlby's first squad alongside nine of the team that won World Cup bronze in Liverpool last month.

Thirlby, who recently replaced Tracey Neville at the helm, has named 25 players on the full-time programme for 2019/20, including England captain Serena Guthrie, Jo Harten, Helen Housby, Geva Mentor, Layla Guscoth and Natalie Haythornthwaite.

Shimmin, 27, is the most surprising addition. The Adelaide Thunderbirds defender represented Australia at Under-21 level and also played for the senior side in the 2014 and 2016 Fast5 series. She qualifies to play for England through dual citizenship.

Shimmin is the second Australian to defect to England in recent years, following in the footsteps of Thunderbirds team-mate Chelsea Pitman, who won the World Cup with Australia in 2011 before switching allegiance in 2017.

ARTACHO DEL SOLAR/CLANCY RISE TO NO. 2 IN WORLD RANKING

Canberra, Australia, June 25, 2019 – Australia’s Mariafe Artacho del Solar and Taliqua Clancy have been ranked at No.2 in the world in the lead-up to the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships, which get underway this weekend in Hamburg, Germany.

Mariafe and Taliqua have had an incredible run of success this year and head into the world’s following victory in the FIVB 4 Star World Tour Event in Poland.

They have won gold five times on the World Tour and are now one of the hot favourites for the World titles, which start on June 28 and conclude on July 7 in Hamburg.

Gold for Artacho del Solar and Clancy at FIVB 4* Warsaw

Australia’s Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho del Solar head into the World Beach Volleyball Championships in great form with victory in the FIVB 4 Star World Tour Event in Warsaw, Poland.

Taliqua and Mariafe seeded fifth in Poland defeated the 11th seeds from the United States, Emily Stockman and Kelley Larsen, 2-0 in the final.

The Australians recovered to win the first set 22-20 with the Americans holding double set points. Taliqua and Mariafe went on to win the second set 21-17.

Mariafe says the comeback in the first set was the result of great team work; “The set is not over until the last whistle. We stuck together, we kept fighting every point, and we kept hustling. It was really good team work and really good patience from us and we just trusted the process.”

Mariafe and Taliqua have now won gold five times on the World Tour and head to the World Titles in Hamburg from 28 June to 7 July, confident of success on the back of good form this season.

KIROI-BOGATYREVA: ONE YEAR ON

One year after competing at Commonwealth Games, Australian leading rhythmic gymnast Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva was ready to commence her first half of the new season.

With three World Cups and Australian Gymnastics Championship it was going to be a very busy itinerary with a lot to prove.

Kiroi-Bogatyreva's first destination on the World Cup tour landed her in Sofia, Bulgaria.

A place where only seven months ago the 16-year-old made her World Championship debut and the location brought a lot of good memories and set the mood for a great competition. The second destination in the World Cup series was Uzbekistan and third was Azerbaijan.

Ben Ross and Tay Clark get behind RUOK? for 24 hour treadmill challenge

Former rugby league star Ben Ross and Australian triple Jump Athlete Tay Clark will hop on the treadmill this afternoon as they prepare to "Tread As One" and raise money for RUOK?.

Held at Anytime Fitness Cronulla, the fundraiser sees hundreds of NSW residents hit the treadmill over a period of 24 hours in a bid to raise $500,000 for the important cause.

Netball Journey Worth The Miles For Chelsea Pitman

Much has changed in the eight years between Chelsea Pitman’s two World Cup selections. Not just the name of the event, and the country Pitman is representing, but the way the news is delivered to those who make it and those that don’t.

Back in 2011 when Pitman was a Diamond, or about to be, coach Norma Plummer gathered the full squad in the Margaret Pewtress room at the AIS and read out the names of the Singapore world championships team in alphabetical order.

Bunbury's Lauren Reynolds places fourth in 2019 UCI BMX Supercross World Cup

Bunbury powerhouse Lauren Reynolds headed to Papendal, the Netherlands for Round Four of the 2019 UCI BMXSupercross World Cup earlier this month. 

She and fellow Australian Saya Sakakibara qualified for the final, after posting impressive results in the earlier stages. 

Pacing fourth, Reynolds finished behind American trio Laura Smulders (defending world champion and current world number one), Alise Willoughby, and Felicia Stancil. 

Earlier this year, Reynolds reached the World Cup Season - Round One final in Manchester. 

The 27-year-old currently sits ninth on the overall World Cup standings.

Tamsyn Moana-Veale places fourth in Chengdu ITU World Cup even

FOUR seconds - that was how close Bathurst triathlete Tamsyn Moana-Veale came to a World Cup podium in Chengdu, China on Sunday.

As the finish line neared and with Moana-Veale hungry for her first podium in an ITU World Cup event since 2013, she summed one final sprint effort.

But in the end she was unable to kick past American Renee Tomlin or Belgium's Valerie Barthelemy and had to settle for fourth position.

Still, Moana-Veale was delighted to have come so close to a medal.

Baker, Cure and Stewart retain national membership

Tasmanian cycling trio Georgia Baker, Amy Cure and Macey Stewart have been rewarded with Australian cycling team membership for the 2019/20 season.

With less than 500 days until the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, Baker and Cure were named in the podium category with Stewart retaining her position in the podium ready program alongside ACT sprinter Nathan Hart and Queenslander Kristina Clonan.

Amy Cure and Deon Kenzie win gold medals at their respective national championships

It's been a golden few days for North-West Coast athletes Amy Cure and Deon Kenzie on the mainland after success at national championship level.

Cure started the celebrations late of Friday night after she claimed the 10km scratch race title at the Track National Championships in Brisbane.

The victory gave the West Pine rider her 12th gold medal at national championship level and came in a thrilling sprint finish where she held off Launceston's Georgia Baker and NSW rider Ashlee Ankudinoff, while Devonport's Macey Stewart was in seventh.

"It was really good, I was happy to cross the line first but I wasn't sure how I was going to go as I've been a bit sick so I'm really happy with my performance tonight," Cure said.

Cure almost secured a second gold medal on Saturday night in the women's 25km points race, but had to settle for silver after being overtaken on the final-lap sprint by Ankudinoff, with Stewart back in eighth place.

Chelsea Pitman and Layla Guscoth named co-captains for Adelaide Thunderbirds in Super Netball

Adelaide Thunderbirds have joined an Adelaide trend and named co-captains with England team members Chelsea Pitman and Layla Guscoth to lead the side in the Super Netball season.

Thunderbirds coach Tania Obst admits she has deviated from her own captaincy perception, but believes the dual captain system was the best fit for the new group.

Adelaide and Port Adelaide have opted for two captains this season.

HEARTBREAK OF RIO SPURRING CURE ON TO 2020

After a horrific crash in the lead up to the 2016 Rio Olympics, Amy Cure is using the situation as motivation to get back to the biggest sporting event.

It was just a month ago Australian cyclist Cure won gold in the Women's team pursuit at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships.

The team of Cure, Annette Edmondson, Ashlee Ankudinoff and Georgia Baker beat Olympic Champions Great Britain with a time of 4:14.333 in the final.

It was a great win for Australia, having brought home a silver in 2017 after the United States took gold.

"It was an amazing feeling to get the gold," Cure said.

"We went in there and we had a time we wanted to achieve so went over there and achieved that time in qualifying.

"We were pretty happy about that and we realised that we were in with a chance for the gold medal.

"I wouldn't say we believed we couldn't do that because we knew we would be right up there, but it was a great feeling to bring home that gold medal."

It was a great result from the side just over a year out from the Olympics in Tokyo and getting a win over the World Record holders. 

However, 26-year-old Cure is fuelled to go one better at Tokyo 2020 after a high-speed crash involving the pursuit team happened just three days out from the competition in 2016.

DEALING WITH ADVERSITY

It’s crazy how from one day to another, your life can completely change before your eyes, when you least expect it. From the first moment we enter this world we are learning about life. We get older and go to school for what seems like a lifetime. Where all you do is dream, dream about the wonderful future you can’t wait to have one day. You go through school making decisions. What subjects are you going to study? What is going to help you live the bright future you have always dreamt of? This is all a part of life, learning and growing. 

I never knew what I wanted to study at school as I got older,  all I knew is that one day I wanted to go to the Olympics, then settle down and start a beautiful family. I always thought I was going to be a long distance track runner. I really loved running and it was all I ever did at school. One thing was for sure, I really loved sport. I always found it hard when I had to go back into the classroom from being outside, let’s just say that sitting still was not my strongest ability. 

MOANA-VEALE TO GIVE HER ALL TO MAKE TOKYO 2020

After continuous injuries hindered triathlete Tamsyn Moana-Veale's attempt to represent Australia at a home Commonwealth Games, she is hoping that 2019 will lead to a big year.

The 25-year-old is aiming to make the Australian team for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which is just 487 days away.

The triathlete knows it will be a tough task with only three spots up for grabs and a strong calibre of Australian female athletes wanting to compete on the biggest stage.  

To give it her best chance at going to Tokyo, she is looking to get back to competing at the World Triathlon Series (WTS) this year and pushing out some good performances to be at her best. 

SA skateboarder Kat Williams looks to land a spot on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics team and a win at next week’s state titles

Kat Williams may seem fearless to some.

She splits her time between abseiling high-rise buildings as a window cleaner and getting air on her skateboard.

But it isn’t the adrenalin rush that has Williams hooked on the two activities – it’s the feeling of freedom.

“I wouldn’t say I’m an adrenalin junkie,” Williams, of Underdale, says.

“I love the freedom (of skateboarding) and that you can kind of do it all by yourself at any time.

“With working and abseiling, I know what I’m doing so it’s really safe.

“It’s more of the freedom feeling of hanging around and being above the city that draws me to it.”