“I definitely didn’t come into these Championships expecting to walk away with two World Titles.”
Victorian Institute of Sport para cycling duo Alistair Donohoe and Emily Petricola had a weekend to remember at the 2019 UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships in the Netherlands both becoming World Champions in their respective events.
Donohoe claimed his fifth and sixth career world title victories with wins in the C5 scratch race and individual pursuit
Donohoe was “speechless” after overtaking his Ukrainian opponent Yehor Dementyev in the individual pursuit final to take his first world title of the year and dedicated the victory to his family.
“This one was all for my big brother [Patrick], special sister in law, and their new and amazing son Jasper,” he said.
Meanwhile Victorian Institute of Sport’s Emily Petricola knocked off her own World Record and claimed the world title in the C4 individual pursuit.
In an impressive afternoon qualifying ride, Petricola raced away to break her own World Record in a blistering time of 3mins 53.297 seconds for the 3km event.
Petricola struggled to articulate how she felt after seeing a new World Record time pop up on the clock saying it was “very unexpected and unplanned.”
In the gold medal ride, she overtook her Canadian opponent Kelly Shaw to take the gold and the world title.
"I spent a lot of time over the course of the last twelve months identifying exactly what went wrong last year and what I needed to change so I didn't have the same outcome this year," she said.
"I worked hard with my VIS coach Shane Kelly and Cameron Jennings on controlling my riding in qualifying, as I do tend to get a bit excited on race day. But I did my best to follow the instructions being given to me throughout and, thankfully, we executed two good, fast rides to get the rainbows.”
VIS Results:
Alistair Donohoe | Gold | C5 Individual Pursuit
Alistair Donohoe | Gold | C5 Scratch Race
Alistair Donohoe | 14th | C5 1km Time Trial
Emily Petricola | Gold | C4 Individual Pursuit
Emily Petricola | Bronze | C4 Scratch Race
Emily Petricola | 4th | C4 500m Time Trial
Jessica Gallagher + Madison Janssen | Silver | Tandem Sprint
Jessica Gallagher + Madison Janssen | 4th | Tandem 1km Time Trial
