National Under-19 women’s road race champion, Ashleigh Parsons, has been swamped with school and homework since her return from a training camp in Egypt last month.
But she’s still determined to focus just as hard on her training ahead of the 2017 African Continental Track Championships, which takes place at the Cyril Geoghegan Velodrome in Durban next week.
Parsons took part in a UCI Road Cycling Training Camp hosted by the World Cycling Centre Africa in Egypt, and arrived back in time to take the U19 Women’s title (Junior) at the 2017 SA National Road Championships in Wellington last month. ‘I’ve had so much to do and am just struggling to stay on top of it all, but I’ll get there,’ she said.
Chatting about her preparation for African Continental Track Championships, she said: ‘I’m lucky to have covered a lot of the ground work training for SA National Road Champs, so I’m just focusing on maintaining that and keeping form.’
Parsons will be doing plenty of training on the track ahead of the championships, but she’s also gained a lot of road time on the bike after taking part in the Hot Chillee Cape Rouleur event. ‘With those races behind me, I will now be on the track 24/7,’ she added.
The events on which Parsons will be focusing, are the Scratch, Individual Pursuit, 1500m and Omnium events. ‘To be the African Continental Omnium Champion will be such an amazing honour for me,’ she said. ‘This is a really big goal for me.’
The competition will run from 20-23 March, with Friday 24 March being a reserve day for races postponed or carried over.
Entrance to the public is free, and Cycling SA encourages those in and around KwaZulu-Natal to attend and witness the fine spectacle of racing that is track cycling.
Picture of Parsons in road action courtesy of Mylene Paynter/CSA