Australian Cycling Team athlete Alexandra Manly has earned her first victory at pro cycling's top level.
The South Australian took out stage 4 of the Tour of Scandinavia overnight, outsprinting fellow Aussie Chloe Hosking from a late breakaway.
It’s Manly’s first win at UCI Women’s WorldTour level, adding to her haul of victories at the Lotto Thüringen Ladies Tourback in May.
Just a day after achieving a silver medal during the rhythmic gymnastics team event, Australia’s Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva has added a bronze medal to her collection.
The 20-year-old placed third in Friday’s individual all around final with a total score of 111.100 after performing four impressive routines.
Team BikeExchange-Jayco’s Alex Manly wrapped up the 2022 LOTTO Thüringen Ladies Tour GC on Sunday in stunning style, taking her fourth stage victory of the week to confirm herself as the overall winner.
The Australian won the uphill drag race to the finish line in Altenburg after a day of full-on attacks in the peloton, to bring to a close a memorable race for both herself and the team, which won five of the six stages thanks to her four successes and a victory from Georgia Baker earlier in the week.
Manly also sealed the points classification, to put the finishing touches to an outstanding team effort that saw each rider play an important role throughout the six days.
Harriet “Haz” Burbidge-Smith, 25, can’t remember a time when she did not ride a bike. She started racing BMX around the age of 4 in her hometown of Canberra, Australia, and hasn’t stopped since. “I was so pumped to be there every time,” she recalls. “I’ve always known that the bike is my happy place.” That kind of passion for riding helped propel Burbidge-Smith to eight Australian national championship titles in BMX and fueled Olympic dreams.
Such is her incredible level of dedication and commitment to becoming one of the world’s best rhythmic gymnasts, 20-year-old Melburnian and dual Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva has been training and competing away from home – mostly based in Baku, Azerbaijan – for the past 40 weeks.
From winning titles as a BMX racer, to transitioning to mountain bike and helping to uplift pro women's riding, Harriet Burbidge-Smith might just be the future of her sport.
When it comes to ones to watch, few riders out there are as exciting as eight-time Australian BMX Champion and two-time amateur BMX World Champ winner Harriet Burbidge-Smith. At 25, she’s a double threat, having excelled in BMX racing before making the switch to mountain bike, which she says offers her more creativity, freedom and opportunities to stay stoked on her sport.
What’s more, Burbidge-Smith is a die-hard ambassador for women and girls in biking, running female-only training camps and never missing an opportunity to uplift her fellow female riders who are bringing the gnar.
It was only meant to be a three-week trip to the United States.
But it turned into the best decision of Harriet Burbidge-Smith's mountain biking career, and has helped her tick off goal after goal.
The Sunshine Coast Lightning has had a tough start to the season, with two losses, and two huge scores conceded. Kate Walsh has stepped into a key role in defence and believes the team is finding their way still.
The Lightning started the 2022 season conceding 82 goals in each match. The first time they did so, it set the scoring record for Suncorp Super Netball. The second, they avoided breaking the record for a second week in a row, but that was the only saving grace.
Three-time Paralympic gold medallist Carol Cooke has returned to competitive cycling for the first time since being hospitalised by a serious crash at Tokyo 2020.
Australian Cooke entered the Games in the Japanese capital as the defending champion in the women's T1-2 time trial and road race.
She collected silver in the time trial at Tokyo 2020, but suffered a punctured lung during a heavy fall in the road race, which left her in hospital and unable to return home with the rest of the Australian team.
For Harriett Burbidge-Smith, the season ended where it began way back in Innsbruck: on the top step of the podium.
“It’s pretty cool,” said Burbidge-Smith of starting and ending her season with dual slalom wins. “I thought that this morning, that it would be pretty cool to end it the same way. It’s pretty much how this year took off for me, and how it ended, so it’s cool.”
“IT was a very long and difficult journey, overcoming a lot of mental blocks and physical challenges … but I’ve come a long way!” is how 19-year-old Melburnian and 2018 dual Commonwealth Games bronze medalist Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva describes her past three months.
Australian cycling great Carol Cooke expects to be in Tokyo for another fortnight as she recovers from the punctured lung she suffered at the Paralympics.
The 60-year-old, a three-time Paralympics gold medallist, is out of hospital and staying at a Tokyo hotel.
She crashed during the T1-2 road race at the Games on September 2 and eventually had to pull out of the event.
Veteran Australian Paralympian Carol Cooke’s games have come to a heartbreaking end after she dramatically crashed out of the women’s T1-2 road race amid horrible conditions.
The 60 year-old, who sensationally won silver in the T1-2 time trial a few days earlier, suffered a devastating and nasty-looking crash in the first half of the 26km race.
Amidst howling rain and slippery road conditions, Cooke was behind Marie-Eve Croteau when the Canadian lost control of her bike.
The cyclist behind Croteau, Jane Majunke, hit the brakes, but Cooke was powerless to stop as her bike collided with Majunke’s bike and fell heavily, sliding sideways towards the fence.
Australia has won a 50th medal at the Tokyo Paralympics.
Carol Cooke — who turned 60 less than four weeks ago — brought up Australia’s half century when she took silver in the women’s T1-T2 time trial.
One of six Aussie road cyclists to win medals today, she became the second-oldest Australian women to get on the podium at the Paralympics.
Time is the master of experienced athletes.
It controls training, it decides medals, and it sounds a gong on unwanted birthdays.
When the Tokyo Paralympics were rescheduled from 2020 to 2021, para-cyclist Carol Cooke figured out she'd be 60 by the time she raced.
Six-oh.
Women are reclaiming sports typically assumed to be the domain of men, and absolutely crushing the game. We speak to PUMA athlete, Barnes, about her experience.
Whether it’s your local soccer club competition, an adults’ ballet class or the world championships, your gender shouldn’t influence your choice of physical activity.
That’s something world champion BMX racer and PUMA athlete Des’ree Barnes knows well, especially as her experience in a male-dominated arena has only fuelled her success and performance.
Five years ago, after the Rio Olympic Games, Australian BMX athlete Lauren Reynolds was at her lowest.
“After Rio I felt completely unaccomplished,” says Reynolds.
“Even though I had been to two Olympic Games, I felt like I was going nowhere and nothing made sense.
“I didn’t feel like I deserved to be there and because I wasn’t competitive out there, I didn’t feel like I should be there.”
After Rio, on top of the personal pressure Reynolds placed on herself, there was external pressure too. Many thought that she didn’t have another Olympic Games in her – that she was too old and too slow.
Her constant battles with injuries threatened to tear her down, and end her quest of Hockeyroos’ global dominance before it could even begin.
But those moments have only made her Tokyo selection all the sweeter.
The 26-year-old Townsville hockey product’s journey was set to reach its peak at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, before an ACL tear robbed her of the chance.
STEPHANIE Kershaw has punched her ticket to Tokyo.
The Townsville hockey star was named in the Hockeyroos Olympic squad to make her debut at the quadrennial event next month.
Even after getting the chance to captain the Hockeyroos, Stephanie Kershaw does not believe her Olympics selection is guaranteed.
The Townsville hockey star became the first athlete from the region to lead her nation since Catherine Roncato skippered the Matildas — a moment she said was one of the proudest in her career.
Not that the honour has changed the 25-year-old too much. Straight after her return from New Zealand, she was back into her university work as if nothing had changed.
Kershaw made her performance an emphatic one once the ‘C’ was put next to her name, scoring a goal and setting up another in Australia’s Trans-Tasman Series-deciding victory over the Kiwis.
