Youth Olympic Cycling: “This is the most pain I ever felt in my life,” Travis Woodford says of the road race, as Singapore finishes 29th

Story by Kenneth Tan/Red Sports. Photos by Marvin Lowe/Red Sports

The Float @ Marina Bay, Sunday, August 22, 2010 — The Youth Olympic Games (YOG) cycling competition came to an end this morning, with Singapore’s team (three boys and one girl) finishing 29th out of 32 countries.

The cycling competition is divided into four events: BMX, mountain bike, road race, and time trial. Each of the three boys are required to compete in one of the three disciplines — BMX, mountain bike and time trial — with all of them having to take part in the road race. The girl, on the other hand, has to compete in all the disciplines except the road race.

Singapore’s female representative is Nur Nasthasia Abdul Nazzeer. She completed her YOG campaign with a 25th-place finish in a field of 31 in the Junior Women’s Time Trial final.

Her time of 3 minutes 51.74 seconds over 2.3 kilometres was 33.74 seconds behind race winner Linda Indergand of Switzerland, and below her personal best (PB).

It was a disappointing finish for the 18-year-old who had earlier impressed with her performances in the BMX event where she made it all the way to the semi-finals.

“It’s a very interesting and good experience for me,” said Nasthasia, a BMX specialist.

“I started out from BMX and really looked forward to this as I was racing with a lot of good riders, like the Brazilian girl who won. I met her before, while training in Switzerland. Besides them, Holland and South Africa were quite fast also,” she added.

“I also not only met friends from other countries but also from the Singapore contingent, for example the rowing, archery, wrestling and judo athletes. I often hang out with them in the village.”

“I wasn’t really happy about it,” she commented, when asked about her time trial. “It was kind of a bit slow and not my PB.”

When quizzed about the future, Nasthasia, who started competitive training two years ago, is not about to rest on her laurels.

“I definitely want to concentrate on my BMX and maybe next year (I’ll) save up to go to Perth to race,” she said.

Meanwhile, the boys’ trio of Travis Woodford, Daniel Koh and Alvin Phoon competed in the finale, the Junior Men’s Road Race final.

It was a gruelling test of stamina and endurance as the 94 cyclists had to go through 48km (five laps of a 9.6km route) under sweltering heat of 32 degrees Celsius.

Before the first lap was even completed, a crash occurred with eight to ten cyclists getting injured in the process.

Travis was the fastest to complete the lap, amongst the Singaporean trio, at 13 minutes 10 seconds, keeping pace with 61 other cyclists. Daniel was next in 66th, trailing 1:08 behind while Alvin Phoon lagged further behind in 83rd, 3:03 down.

Travis remained in 62nd position at the end of the second lap but trailed 3:24 behind the leading pack while Daniel and Alvin laid 4:16 and 6:29 behind respectively.

The end of the third lap saw four riders pull out of the race. On the fourth lap, Singapore’s Alvin followed those four riders to prematurely end his race too.

Travis maintained his 62nd position at 8:43 behind the race leader while Daniel dropped to 73rd on the same time as Travis.

Eventually, Daniel and Travis completed the race in 71st and 73rd position respectively. They were attributed an identical time of 1 hour 16 minutes 48 seconds. However, the latter had to be carried off for medical treatment after the race, suffering from cramps.

The race was won by Belgium’s Boris Vallee with a time of 1:05:42.

“There was a crash on the first lap at the bridge where I was held back,” said a gasping Daniel after the race. “After that, I tried to get back into the leading pack but I couldn’t do so. It was a new experience for me and I’ll try to learn and improve upon my timing for the future.”

This was not the first time Daniel has cycled such a long distance as he revealed he once did a 100km endurance race in Perlis, Malaysia.

When asked whether he was satisfied with his performance, he said, “This result was expected as the competition is really difficult. Singapore’s standards are not there yet unlike other countries where they get to train longer distances.”

Meanwhile a healthier-looking Travis Woodford was able to share his thoughts after receiving medical treatment.

“There was a crash in front of me and my wheel got caught up in the guy’s handlebar. By the time I took the wheel out, my chain dropped off. By the time I fixed the chain back on, the leading pack was so far ahead so I fought like three-quarters of the lap just to get back to it.”

“I was so far behind and alone catching up, so I gave everything. When I got back, I was so tired that I had nothing left,” said Travis, describing his race.

When asked about his team’s strategy, he said, “I was supposed to get into the breakaway, but before I could even do so, there was a crash. Also, I was trying to lead my teammates, but they didn’t follow. It was a little bit of bad luck. This was the most painful I’ve felt in my life. Coming into the last lap, I couldn’t even pedal at all!”

“My time trial was alright, I was pretty happy. Today, I’m a bit disappointed,” he commented on his performance. “My team manager was happy about my performance but personally I’m not very satisfied. As a team, we did well against some of the top countries in the world. Singapore’s not really known as a cycling nation so maybe now this is a start of things to come.”