Cycling: Track star comes to grief on grass

By Suzanne McFadden

A flirtation with a mountain bike left Commonwealth Games cycling gold medallist Sarah Ulmer nursing an arm in a cast last night.

Ulmer - more at home on concrete and tarseal than grass - tore tendons in an arm after she flew over the handlebars early in the national mountain biking cross-country race in Dunedin yesterday.

"It might as well have been at the startline," she said. "I did a tiny lap on the grass, went round a couple of cones and drove myself into a ditch.

"It was a wee spill. But it hurt like hell if the truth be known."

Ulmer, who won gold on the track in Kuala Lumpur last year, was taken to Dunedin Hospital for x-rays, but nothing was broken.

The Auckland cyclist was making her debut on the national mountain bike circuit this season. She was sixth in last week's opening race.

"This course was a bit technical for my lack of skills," she said.
Ulmer is likely to be off her bike for a couple of weeks to allow the tendons to heal.

But the accident should not interfere with her next campaign, riding for Canadian professional team Elita next month.

It is the first time Ulmer has been contracted to ride for an international road team. But it will not interrupt her track schedule in the lead-up to the 2000 Olympics.

National mountain bike champion Susy Pryde missed yesterday's race, as she had to return to the United States for a training camp with her professional road team.

Aucklander Sadie Parker won the women's elite race yesterday, from Swedish former world junior champion Helena Erickson.

Professional rider Kashi Leuchs performed for his local crowd, out-climbing six-time New Zealand champion Jon Hume in the men's race.