MELANIE WHELAN: Ballarat, Buninyong need to lock in RoadNats contract

Almost three weeks have lapsed since AusCycling Road National Championships rolled out of town and we are still unsure whether RoadNats is coming back.

All we know is negotiations between City of Ballarat, AusCyling and the state government are ongoing.

In the back to work-school-routine rush it can be easy to let such a limbo status slide into a sense of complacency.

But no news is not necessarily good news with campaigners in cities such as Wollongong and Perth known to be champing at the bit to steal our game.

Typically we would know by now where we stand in RoadNats status.

Elite cycling has still been out in force this month with RoadNats just starting to heat up the action. Athletes are back in Victoria this weekend for the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, which boasts a typically fierce finish complete with gruelling climbs in Geelong.

And its only getting bigger.

This edition - the first in three years - will be the second time the women's race has been included on the UCI World Tour. It is being lauded a re-boot of sorts with the women's world tour debut in 2020 largely washed out with little fanfare in nasty weather.

This now comes on the back of the Tour Down Under in South Australia, which this year featured triple Buninyong national time trial champion Grace Brown capturing the first Tour Down Under women's race with UCI World Tour status.

We had men's field stacked with Grand Tour stage winners hit Buninyong for the RoadNats men's road race with Luke Plapp, who contested the Vuelta a Espana last year, going back-to-back for the green-and-gold stripes.

The women's road race featured strong names like Brown, who captured silver, and Amanda Spratt in a time when women's cycling has a chance to really move up a few gears.

Ballarat has become a strong launch pad for South Australia and Geelong's World Tour events.

Cycling doyen Phil Liggett told The Courier at RoadNats Ballarat and Buninyong truly feel like the home of Australian road cycling - and this was a feat that has taken 17 years to develop. Liggett made clear the importance of giving the public more than a race when cycling rolled into town, and said this was a feat our city did well.

As Federation University vice-chancellor Duncan Bentley has said, community activation was a key priority for the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games with a lot of planning and focus.

This works in our favour for Ballarat is a rarity in cycling - it is one of the only national championships to remain in one place year after year and it keeps growing.

Para-cycling and junior road title have been added to the fixture here with conquering the Buninyong climb, repeatedly, now part of this nation's cycling folklore.

And still we have heard nothing.

We cannot take any of this for granted. We might long be the spiritual home of Australian road cycling, but we need to know we have locked in the action.

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