![\"ccs-62657-0-90717100-1446811663.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.bikehub.co.za\/production\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ccs-62657-0-90717100-1446811663.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/a>Team Bestmed-ASG\u2019s Ashleigh Parsons won the U16 title at the South African Track Omnium Championships at the Bellville Velodrome in Cape Town on Thursday. Photo: Erik Vermeulen.<\/span>\n<\/div>\nThe 15-year-old claimed the gold medal in the 7.5km scratch race, 2 000m individual pursuit, 250m flying lap and 20km points race as well as the 500m time-trial, where she set a new personal best of 42.3 seconds.<\/p>\n
She dropped out of the elimination event, leaving her teammate Jessica Brown, 16, to take that win and silver overall.<\/p>\n
Their fellow Bestmed-ASG rider and 2014 elite champion Maroesjka Matthee was unable to defend her jersey as she is still recovering from a serious arm injury sustained earlier in the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very sorry she couldn\u2019t race because she\u2019s out-and-out the best female track rider that we have in the country,\u201d said Parsons.<\/p>\n
Parsons, who attends Huguenot High School in Wellington, said she was thrilled with her victory despite juggling a hectic study schedule.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been hard training for the champs with school and exams. I had to have training sessions before school and sometimes late in the evening but all the hard work has definitely paid off.\u201d<\/p>\n
The young rider, who is also the reigning national track champ in her age category, said the omnium was particularly challenging because participants had to contest all six events.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is something really good to add to my CV and my cycling accolades so far. I can now say I have won both track nationals and omnium champs.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the track, the races are short but it takes a bit out of you. You just have to put your head down and race as hard as you can.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the bunch races were exciting, she said her favourites were definitely the time-trial and individual pursuit.<\/p>\n
Parsons certainly proved her affinity for these events when she set new SA records in both at track nationals in April.<\/p>\n
She already has her sights set on gold at next season\u2019s champs, which would make it six years in a row.<\/p>\n
\u201cNext year I take on my final year as an under-16 rider. Then I\u2019m going to put my head down and take on straight-on national records that are going to stay in the record books for a while,\u201d said the determined youngster.<\/p>\n
Earlier this season, Parsons claimed the category win in her first major road race, the Emperors Palace Classic in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Team Bestmed-ASG\u2019s Ashleigh Parsons won five of her six events to claim the under-16 title at the South African Omnium Track Championships at the Bellville Velodrome in Cape Town on Thursday evening. Parsons put on a fireworks-filled display over the course of the two-day event to secure the overall champion\u2019s jersey on Guy Fawkes Night. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":45955,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3367,1754],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-19065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-ashleigh-parsons","tag-team-bestmed-asg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19065"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=19065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}