West Pine’s Amy Cure has found a new professional team to ride with in 2019 after it was announced she will ride for Specialized Women’s Racing.
Cure took to Instagram announce the news on Monday morning and expressed her excitement about signing on with the team.
Aussie Isabella Bozicevic, affectionately known as the pink assassin, has been making waves down-under in tennis circles and is being touted as the future of the women’s game in Australia. Already the #1 in her age group, seventeen year old Isabella competes on the Pro Tour.
We got a few moments with Isabella to find out how she fuels herself as a pro athlete…
ALEX Manly made a triumphant return to competitive riding by taking out the 2000m women’s wheel final in decisive fashion.
The backmarkers were always favourite to succeed once they caught the leaders on the penultimate lap, with Manly (scratch) swooping down the outside on the run home to win from Queensland duo Lilliana McLennan (140m) and Alexandra Martin-Wallace (20m).
The result was Manly’s first-ever wheel win in Tasmania and comes after an injury lay-off.
“Three months ago I fractured my shoulder in a crash, so this is the first real block of racing I have had since then,” the 22-year-old from South Australia said.
South Australian cycling champion Annette Edmondson is home after months of intense training in Spain and her mind is on the track and a new role.
Edmondson, 26, went straight to the Adelaide Super Dome for a track session just hours after stepping off the plane this week and will do the same every day for the next two months, taking a break only on Christmas Day.
She’ll average three and a half hours on the track and in the gym daily in the lead-up to the Track Cycling World Championship in Poland in February. But a key goal is the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“We are training really hard at the velodrome on track bikes as well as doing gym work and sessions on the stationary trainers,” she said. “We’ll be doing long rides on the road and short, sharp efforts at the track … our focus is the team pursuit which is a four minute race.”
The focus on the track means it is unlikely she’ll take part in next month’s Tour Down Under.
“I haven’t completely ruled it out but at this stage I’m not planning on riding in it,” she said.
The 3000 metre steeplechase has always been Madeline Hills’ first athletics love.
It was the event she finished fourth in when she burst onto the scene at the 2014 Commonwealth Games and the event she made an Olympic final in Rio de Janeiro.
However, a string of injuries saw the Shellharbour product move away from the challenging event, with Hills consigned to the 5000m and 10,000m flat races since the Olympics.
Now healthy and with a full base of winter training under her belt, Hills is returning to her preferred event.
SHE enjoyed plenty of success in Europe this season and now Bathurst triathlete Tamsyn Moana-Veale has a win on home soil to add to her tally.
Moana-Veale only arrived back in Australia last Monday at midnight, but on Sunday she took out the elite women’s race in the opening round of the 2018-19 2XU Triathlon Series at Elwood.
Alex Manly – the reigning Australian under-23 road race and time trial champion – says that she's excited about the 2019 season and that, having worked out a plan that will best combine her road and track ambitions, she'll be able to assist her Mitchelton-Scott teammates to win some major races next year.
Manly has always managed to combine both the road – for Mitchelton-Scott – and the track, representing Australia, but does neither by half.
The 22-year-old from Kalgoorlie, in Western Australia, won both the under-23 road race and time trial titles, for the second year in a row, at the road national championships in January, and has been a key member of her pro team's team time trial squad in 2018.
On the track, meanwhile, Manly was part of the South Australia team that won the team pursuit at the national championships in February, and then went on to represent Australia at the Commonwealth Games in April, winning gold in the team pursuit.
BEACH VOLLEYBALL: Kingaroy beach volleyball player Taliqua Clancy has won the 2018 Asian beach volleyball championships in Thailand alongside team mate Mariafe Artacho Del Solar.
The Australian duo faced fierce competition from China's Wang Fan and Xue Chen in the gold medal match.
The Australian's took the first set 21-17 then Chinese won the second 19-21 before Clancy and Artacho Del Solar claimed the third set 15-9 to secure the championship.
Commonwealth Games silver medallists, Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho del Solar are targeting the world top spot after capping off a stellar World Tour season, adding two awards to their four FIVB World Tour gold medals.
Clancy was honoured with “Best Server,” while Artacho del Solar took out the “Most Improved Player,” award – the first awards received by an Australian women’s player on the tour since Louise Bawden won the “Top Rookie” award in 2009.
Of her award win, Artacho del Solar said,
“It was such an honour to be named most improved player of the tour, and I’m so proud of Taliqua for winning best server!”
The successful duo have put Australia on the map, throwing beach volleyball into the limelight as arguably one of the most successful Aussie teams this year.
TOWNSVILLE’s Stephanie Kershaw has reflected on her impressive rise from Wests junior to Hockeyroos star as she prepares to play her 50th game in the green and gold next week.
Kershaw will bring up the milestone as Australia takes on hosts Japan in the opening match of the Four Nations Women’s Ibaraki International Tournament, which also features South Korea and the United States.
ADELAIDE Thunderbirds defender Kate Shimmin has had her career-best season recognised as the club champion.
Shimmin topped the vote count from coach Dan Ryan and assistant Jane Woodlands-Thompson after being a massive positive in the Thunderbirds’ nightmare season when they failed to win a game.
Returning to the Thunderbirds this season after a year with Queensland Firebirds, Shimmin dominated the awards night by claiming four of the five trophies.
Mizuno are proud to announce the signing of Australian Fast5 and Adelaide Thunderbirds player Kate Shimmin. Kate began her career with the Thunderbirds in 2011 where she played for six seasons and was part of the 2013 premiership team. After a one year stint with the Queensland Firebirds she returned home in 2018 to the Thunderbirds. Kate has also been part of the Australian Fast5 team on several occasions since 2012.
It was all hills at the Oceania Cross Country Championships at Maleny Golf Course on Saturday (25) and it was all Hills in the women’s title.
Madeline Hills was the class of the women’s field and she dominated in the expected manner. After sitting in with the pack in the early stages, the Rio 2016 Olympic dual finalist (5000m and steeplechase) simply ran away from her rivals to win the 10km race by almost 400 metres.
ADELAIDE Thunderbirds defender Kate Shimmin needed just one phone call from new coach Tania Obst to confirm she wanted to stay with the club.
There was an opportunity to play in New Zealand, although Shimmin was evasive when asked about other offers. But she wanted to stay in her home town, claiming there is unfinished business.
Wing attack Chelsea Pitman also said it was an easy decision to stay with the Thunderbirds when her signing for next season, as well as that of Shimmin, was confirmed on Thursday.
BEACH VOLLEYBALL: Aussie beach volleyball super-duo Taliqua Clancy and Mariafe Artacho del Solar have created history, winning bronze at the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Final, making this their sixth podium appearance of the season.
Throughout the tournament, Clancy and Artacho del Solar won four matches, including a match against World Number 1, Brazil's Agatha Bednarczuk and Eduarda Santos Liboa and World Number 3, Brazil's Maria Antonelli and Carolina Salgado.
The Australian team topped the women's pools, sending them into the bronze medal play-off against Antonelli and Salgado, with the Aussie duo taking the bronze medal, 21-15, 19,21 and 8-15.
North-West Coast cycling stars Amy Cure and Macey Stewart have teamed up to lead an impressive medal haul for Australian riders at an international track meet in the German city of Ludwigshafen.
Competing in the madison event, Cure and Stewart defeated a class field of European riders on the outdoor velodrome.
IN a season where she has enjoyed some of the best individual results of her triathlon career, Tamsyn Moana-Veale can now boast an Australian team podium as well.
The Bathurst star was part of the four-member Australian team which competed in the 2018 edition of the Accenture British Triathlon Mixed Relay Cup in London on the weekend, joining Natalie Van Coevorden, Marcel Walkington and Matthew Roberts.
The Australians placed third in a format which saw each team member tackling a swim, cycle and run leg. They clocked an overall time of one hour, nine minutes, 21 seconds to finish behind victors Leeds 1 (1:08.29) and Loughborough 1 (1:09.20).
Amy Cure and Macey Stewart are on the hunt for a new team in 2019 with Wiggle High5 Pro Cycling Team to shut up shop at the end of the year.
Owner/manager and former professional cyclist Rochelle Gilmore announced on Thursday that she would not be registering the team next season via a video message through the team’s social media channels.
West Pine’s Amy Cure red-hot track form continued with victory in the Madison and a second place finish in the Omnium at the Six Days of Turin event at the Velodromo Francone in Italy.
The Wiggle High5 Pro Cycling Team rider teamed up with fellow Australian Alexandra Manly in the Madison, the pair proved too strong for the competition to take out the Madison with a tally of 33 points.
ADELAIDE Thunderbirds netballer Chelsea Pitman, who played her 100th National League game on Sunday, shows us a few of her home favourites.
ADELAIDE Thunderbirds netballer Chelsea Pitman celebrated playing her 100th National League game on Sunday. Here Chelsea takes us inside the eclectic beachside home she shares with her partner Shayne Harris.
AGE
30
WORKLIFE
Professional netballer - currently playing for the Adelaide Thunderbirds in the Suncorp Super Netball League and also representing the England Roses at an international level.
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS/BEST KNOWN FOR…
Winning gold at the Commonwealth Games this year on the Gold Coast; 2017 Thunderbirds MVP; 2011 Netball World Champion are a few of my career highlights. Those close to me would say I am best known for my crude and dry sense of humour.
