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AMBASSADOR BLOG #6 - CAITLIN WARD

3/19/2017

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Caitlin Ward
Blog: International Women's Day

I have never been overly involved in international women's day so to be invited as a guest speaker to the SA women in sport celebration of such an event was a great honor. I was on a panel of 6 with some incredible athletes such as Erin Bell from the the Adelaide Thunderbirds and the Diamonds (Australian netball team), Stella Rigon from Adelaide United (SA Soccer team) plus many more. We were interviewed by triple Paralympic gold medalist Katrina Webb OAM and mingled with a great crowd throughout the night. 

The passion that Katrine Hildyard showed for women in sport was inspiring - there is such a massive team behind the scenes that bring us the opportunities we sometimes take for granted and hearing her speak was nothing short of inspiring. She is determined to get equal rights, pay, facilities and opportunities across all sports at all levels - how awesome would that be!?

I have been lucky enough to be able to get involved in many aspects of female in sport life over in SA and am thrilled of the inclusion and increase of talented girls coming into the cycling program through SASI talent search. I have been lucky enough to mentor these young cyclists over the last 6 months and it's  been a great eye opener as to how to keep girls in sport. 

The community environment in SA is very encouraging and inclusive which allows great events such as this to run so successfully and I am so grateful to have been involved. It was a day (as is every day) to celebrate strong, passionate women and create a path where there is equality in every way and it was an absolute pleasure to be among the other athletes as guests of honor. 
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AMBASSADOR BLOG #5 - CAITLIN WARD

7/1/2016

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The Lead up to ITS Melbourne 2016.

It would be fair to say that the last 6 months haven’t been easy, last track season was a total rush. The AIS/High Performance crew did everything in their power to jam a winters worth of strength training (where I was out with a back injured) into the first half of track season and bring me up for nationals, which essentially bought me back to where I was, speed wise, of the 2014/2015 season. 
Nationals 2016 was the year I won my first senior Australian title plus, it was my first personal best time in 2 years. It was also the week I was told that I would not be training with the Australian Institute of Sport High Performance Unit up until the Olympic Games were over. As you could imagine, the array of emotions was extensive and many things had to be organised for my next steps in the cycling world. Luckily, Jason Niblett and SASI have been super accommodating and understanding of my living situation and let me join the squad whilst I trained towards the selection events and into the 2016/2017 track season.
The transition into the SASI squad was easy and with the help of Jason and Luke Knappstein, plus the other awesome athletes in their sprint program, my strength, speed and sprint knowledge have all been improving. But most importantly, I have been injury free (touch wood) for nearly 7 months! HOORAY! I am really looking forward to the challenges ahead, it is easy to forget that this also incorporates living in a completely different state to all my friends and family, plus leading a balanced study/training/normal life, but I feel like I have gained a lot of life experience in the last 18 months and am really grateful for these opportunities. It is nice to have such a strong team behind you as I continue to strive for greatness on the track.
Looking forward, ITS Melbourne is the last selection event for the Olympics plus a major selection event for future AIS/HPU scholarships – so obviously, I am tapering hard and doing everything in my power to put my best foot forward so as I continue living, eating and breathing the professional athlete life. I am really excited to be a part of this event – it is a rare sight to have all the athletes vying for Olympic selection at an international event in Melbourne’s backyard so if you are free from 23-26 of June make sure you hit it up and witness Aussies to be Olympians fight for their ticket to Rio!
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AMBASSADOR BLOG #4 - CAITLIN WARD

7/31/2015

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It has been a great year so far for Cycling Australia’s sprinters. The new state of the art gym has opened in the track centre which is nothing short of incredible, training is going well and we are all deep into our winter preparation.

The winter months are always tough for a track cyclist – it’s a mixture of fatigue, brutal training sessions and what feels like a never ending, freezing winter. For me, it was also finding my feet in this new city, getting into university and settling into a routine, as well as making my mark on the Aussie cycling scene in the lead up to RIO 2016. 

We all have been training really hard and seeing promising pb’s since we arrived back in Adelaide from the AIS boot camp in April/May. We competed at the Adelaide International Track Series in the last week of May - pretty cool to pull on the CA High Performance Unit kit for the first time. It was great to jump in the deep end with coach Gary West in a competition setting, the added pressure forced me to learn so much more and allowed a great deal of progress to be made. My goals for this competition was to concentrate on the process, work on my weaknesses and create a deeper understanding with my new coach as to how we both work on race day – which we achieved. 

BMW Doncaster featured me in their winter magazine which I was completely over the moon about – a very cool yet very odd feeling seeing my face been published in a magazine, which you can get from the Doncaster show room, on google play or in the app store. BMW Doncaster have now become an official sponsor of Blackburn Cycling Club, meaning they have a heavy presence at club events which is another very exciting change over this winter period. 

SmashFM as always, have been eagerly supporting my journey as a settle into the professional athlete life over in Adelaide with the High Performance team and am looking forward to catching up for an interview in the near future – so stay tuned!

Another sponsor, Ronde Sports, have been redesigning their range of casual clothes, cycling clothes and merchandise where they have given me the opportunity to be involved at every level in the relaunch process and I am very proud of their new line, which is to be relaunched and ready which has been a really great experience to have been allowed to be a part of. 

Apart from that things are going well in the lead up to track season with my first major event being Oceanias which is being held in New Zealand in October - my first chance since joining the squad to do some damage and push for selection in the World Cup circuit leading into the Olympic year!

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AMBASSADOR BLOG #3 - CAITLIN WARD

5/1/2015

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Since nationals at the end of January I have really sunk my teeth into a hard off season of training at the Victorian Institute of sport, my aims of keeping uninjured while I trained in pursuit of a stronger and faster Katie was so I could go into the 2016 season in the form of my life.

It was definitely not what I was expecting for 2015, but I am over the moon to announce that I was very excited to receive a phone call at the beginning of April from Cycling Australia’s head coach Gary West offering me a scholarship to join the High Performance Unit in Adelaide. It has been a dream of mine to be a full time athlete and to push myself to the limit ever since I can remember and I am so proud to be part of the Australian Squad.

I have just finished my first week of training here in Adelaide which included moving my life from Victoria in a 9 hour car trip, begin training with some of Australia’s finest sporting heroes, a trip back to Melbourne for my first wind tunnel experience plus getting ready to leave for our first big camp of the year which is up at Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra. It is all certainly happening here in ‘radelaide’ and I am so keen to soak up every experience that gets thrown at me and my teammates in the next 12 months – and of course keeping our wonderful followers of Smash FM up to date along the way.

We are currently on a ‘boot camp’ at the AIS in Canberra which is a really cool to experience and very interesting to explore the grounds here at a great facility. It is also a great opportunity to get to know my team mates outside training time, which I think is really important in keeping the fantastic environment that Cycling Australia have created at HPU Adelaide.

That’s all from me, but stay tuned for some more glimpses into my new life as part of the high performance program!
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AMBASSADOR BLOG #2: CAITLIN WARD 

2/4/2015

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After a busy race season, a big summer and lots and lots of riding in circles – it’s good to have a chance to take a breath and reflect with SmashFM on the year I have had.
Most recently I competed in my first World Cup over in Cali, Columbia and then came home to compete at the Nationals Championships in front of a home crowd a week later. Below I reflect on both competitions and give an insight into 2015.

Cali, Columbia.
I woke up as a nervous newbie, not knowing what to expect nor how I would handle all of the unknowns about to head off on my first world cup experience. A week later, I walked away having had the greatest experience at the highest level of competition, being part of an amazing, supportive and professional team plus a few hundred splinters, a couple of burns, big bruises and a sore shoulder.

We arrived in Cali after nearly two days in transit to find our bikes, bags & equipment hadn't made it across from Miami and instead of waiting for the next flight to Cali, the airline had flown everything to Bogota (the equivalent of Sydney to Melbourne) where Rik Fulcher, our team manager, got our bikes on a truck to get them to the track the day before racing. It sounds dramatic but really, things like this happen all the time in international travel and the way the coaches and support staff handled it made it very easy for me to stay relaxed. Even if I was wearing the same clothes for nearly 5 days! Luckily, we were able to borrow the enduros road bikes, and NZ were kind enough to lend us their LeMond trainers so we were able to tick over on the rollers and do some off track efforts whilst we hoped everything would arrive before race day.

Team Sprint
I was very excited to pair with Rikki Belder for the first time, she is super speedy off the line and I knew it would be a great challenge for me to get on her wheel – and I did it. We ended up seventh with the quickest team sprint I have ever done and I was very proud of us to pull that out with close to no practice together at all!

Sprint
It is always hard going into a competition where you haven't practiced the line time and time again. I ended up qualifying 12th in a time which was a bit disappointing however was really lucky to have Nick Flyger (coach) who refocused me on the sprint rounds. I was then able to ride some of the smartest sprint matches I have ever ridden, where I ended up placing in around the top 10 at the World Cup. A confidence boost for competitions in the future.

Keirin
I got to the track and had the usual friendly greetings that I had become accustomed to over the last week or so. The Columbian people were all really lovely and helpful and made the event even more enjoyable. In my keirin heat I had girls who had ridden quicker or the same as me in qualifying so I knew I had to be flying to get through to the semis. I got boxed in coming into a lap and a half to go and had to back out and come around to stand a chance, but much to my surprise I not only did that but rode away from the pack and was safely through. I just made it through into the final with a photo finish in the semi with Wai Sze Lee from Hong Kong. We had a minor delay with a spectacular thunder storm which meant we lost power in the velodrome for a little bit, where I was lucky enough to be kept company by Shane Perkins, who was a real role model for all us - being such a young team. Between Nick and Perko I was filled with so much confidence and was really ready to execute our race plan and leave everything on track. I was feeling great coming into the bell and then I locked bars with Shuang Guo and hit the ground hard, with the Russian rider (Ekaterina Gnidenko) riding into my leg and straight over back which left me lying on the track centre, unable to fight for a medal. After a few minutes to catch my breath I was able to pick myself and my mangled bike up and walk across the line to claim fifth spot (Guo had been disqualified), seven minutes behind the others, in the presence of a very loud and supportive crowd. A moment I'll never forget.

Nationals.
I then came home with a week until nationals to find our bikes were lost again, and that Hilton Clarke already organizing my old bike frame to be built up to get me back on the track, plus rehab for my shoulder and a management plan for nationals all ready for me to put into action once I got home. We luckily got our bikes 2 days before competition so I was able to race on my usual bike which saw me come away with a team sprint silver, keirin bronze and a sprint fourth. I also am really proud to have managed my shoulder injury with the help of my team and my coach really well throughout the week allowing me to race. I pulled the 500m TT to prevent a flare up before the Olympic events (sprint and Keirin) which was really disappointing, even more disappointing was that my shoulder did flare up anyway on sprint finals day. The positive, however, was how well we worked together for my next race – only 24 hours later where I was able to hold on to bronze.
2015 is a year for more race exposure and some serious training. Although I can’t pin point which events I will be targeting I know I will be pushing for positions on the Aussie team and training harder than ever to make a stronger, faster and smarter Katie. I also look forward to continuing my personal sponsorships with Ronde Sports who have been absolutely wonderful with clothing and sock supplies as well as SmashFM who have been of great assistance and are always willing to raise awareness of my sport - which is beyond amazing. I also would like to take this opportunity to mention my Coach Hilton Clarke and my support team at Cycling Victoria and the Victorian Institute of sport who spend countless hours going through the highs and lows of my career, I could never have achieved half of what I have and what I hope to in the future without your dedication and I am so grateful that you back me 100%. 
Photo taken by Cali World Cup
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AMBASSADOR BLOG #1: CAITLIN WARD 

1/7/2015

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I was really pleased to wake up on Christmas eve to see I was officially announced in the Australian Team heading off to compete at the World Cup in Columbia on the 16-18th of January. It is an absolute thrill for me to not only race on the international stage at the highest level but also my first competition since Junior World to be wearing the Australian Kit. I’ll be competing in the Team Sprint with South Australia’s Rikki Belder as well as the individual events – the Sprint and Keirin. The program is very intense – with it all being done and dusted in 2.5 days (usually major competitions are 4 days) which will test everyone’s stamina, but I am feel pumped and super keen for the adventure I am about the embark on. It’s also an absolute pleasure to be able to do this while representing SmashFM who have given me a wonderful opportunity to be an Ambassador. So to the listeners, sponsors and Will from SmashFM – thank you for your support and watch this space!
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