To cap off the Australian Junior Track Series, Ethan Lang made the trip down to a scorching hot Adelaide Super-drome to represent Hamilton Wheelers in what would be his comeback race after breaking his collarbone at junior road nationals in September. One week after surgery Ethan began a solid eight-week block of indoor training that resulted in a very impressive improvement in FTP (fitness). So, despite missing three months of JETS track training at Anna Meares Velodrome Ethan was confident of a good showing in Adelaide.

The first day of racing incorporated the national omnium championships. Ethan easily qualified for the championship event by scoring a point in the first sprint of his points race heat placing him in the top 20.

The omnium championship was hotly contested by the best U17 track riders in Australia. For Ethan, it was a to be a lesson in training specificity and reacquainting himself with shoulder-to-shoulder U17 track racing. After a long, hard day of racing, when other riders were beginning to fatigue, Ethan started to find his legs. In the final event of the omnium, the points race, Ethan was back to his usual ways, attacking, bridging gaps and being competitive in the sprints.

In the evening after his four omnium events, Ethan had “the sorest quads he has ever experienced”. Not at all unexpected considering he hasn’t raced on the boards since April 2022 and has had less than an hour of training on his track bike since then. Ethan can now appreciate the unique power and strength you gain from pushing a single gear around a velodrome. No wonder our Aussie track riders do so well in road events too.

The second day of racing saw more improvement again as Ethan became more confident onthe track bike. Although the results sheet doesn’t reflect it, it was a great outcome for him. In the series, we had 4 juniors representing the Hamilton Wheelers with Porter White

leading our U17 men in 24 th overall. Lachlan Walters was not far behind in 27 th and Ethan brought home the back of the pack in 43 rd . Meanwhile, Harrison Dowling took out 30 th in the U15 men. Our U17 Men will also be training hard now having been selected to the QLD junior track team to compete at nationals in April.