WHEN Emilie Miller hits the roads of Melbourne for the 2017 Australian Para-Cycling Road National Championships, her mission will be about more than adding two gold medals to her collection.
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It will be about improving her times enough to be considered for national representation.
As the only female hand cyclist in her classification in Australia, last year in Adelaide Miller won both the time trial and road race.
What most excited her about that event was that she posted the fastest average speeds she had clocked to that point over the six kilometre time trial.
It’s that sort of effort she wants to emulate this year.
This time the time trial, to be staged on Friday, will be raced over a 10km course between Nar Nar Goon and Langwory Road.
The road races on Saturday start with an 18.5km opening lap before additional laps of 10km, with the number depending on category.
“Everyone is chasing a magic number for qualifying to make national teams, so for me that is always my main goal, and just making sure that my average speed is constantly getting higher and higher,” Miller said.
“That’s the main indicator as to if you’re making progress. So that’s a goal and the main goal for me is obviously trying to gain national selection.”
In the lead up to nationals, Miller has been racing at Bathurst Cycling Club events. It has her feeling good about her form.
“The form is feeling pretty good. We’ve been doing a fair few time trials out at Perthville just to try and get a marker with how I’m going with my progress,” she said.
“That’s always good when you can do that sort of thing and the club has been really supportive of me out there as well.
“It’s a bit hard obviously when I am the only hand cycle in town, but it’s great to be involved in an environment where you are still racing against other people.”
In Melbourne Miller will be racing against male athletes, but she is hopeful the increasing profile of Para-cycling means she will face female rivals in the future.
“It will just be me and the men again, which is just how it is unfortunately. There’s a few women starting to pop up around the world in various places though, so that’s encouraging,” she said.
“Hopefully in the next couple of years, various countries can start to develop those lower classifications. It will be great to watch that and see what happens over the next couple of years, I’m pretty excited about it actually.”
