Roller Girl: Nicole Begg: New Zealand National Championships

The 2009 New Zealand Road and Flat Track National Championships are over for yet another year. There are still a few NZ titles up for grabs with the Marathon and Bank Track Championships still to come.

On the road I took out all the Senior Ladies titles and the 3 Open Ladies (anyone 12yrs +) titles. On the flat track I won all the Senior Ladies and Open Ladies races from the 300 time trial through to the 5km.

Here are a few of my highlights from the champs:

Watching the 7 kids I have been coaching compete at their first National Championships.
Reasonable numbers in nearly all the female grades, with the juvenile and junior girls needing heats.
A lot of up and coming female talent.
New Faces.
The Bont Wheels especially the Pinks working really well on the wooden flat track.
Breaking the 10km points elimination road record by over 11 seconds but then disappointing finding out the record could not stand due to one stopwatch not working.
Seeing skaters from South Canterbury up on the podium. Our club took home 12 gold and 12 bronze medals.
Dahna Penty, one of the new skaters from South Canterbury winning the 200m Time Trial by almost 1.5 seconds. She also won the Joe Bright Memorial Trophy which is given to the most outstanding female skater. I won the trophy in 2000, 2003 and 2006 so it was great to see it go to a skater I coach.
Most of the grades were really competitive so there was a lot of exciting racing that came right down to the wire.

Bill Begg has written an overview of all the grades which can be read on the BONT message board.