Keely Bennett and Keira Will win hard-fought Madison national title, Japanese team win gold

Keely Bennett and Keira Will have become the newest elite women's Madison national champions after a taxing 120 laps of Melbourne's Darebin International Sports Centre Velodrome.

The 2024 edition of the AusCycling Madison National Championships was dominated by Japanese pairing Tsuyaka Uchino and Mizuki Ikeda, who finished on 71 points, more than double the 35-point tally of silver medallists Lee Sze Wing and Leung Wing Yee from Hong Kong.

Australians Bennett (Brunswick Cycling Club) and Will (Lidcombe Auburn Cycle Club) finished on 29 points to win bronze, four points clear of Maeve Plouffe (Port Adelaide Cycling Club) and Isla Carr (X-Speed Australia Cycle Club).

Keely Bennett and Keira Will are the 2024 elite women's Madison national champions. (Picture: Con Chronis)

Uchino and Ikeda made their first significant attack after 40 laps and completed the first of their two lap gains several laps later.

It was their second attack at 50 laps to go that sparked the national championship fire for Bennett and Will.

The new national champions bridged the gap to the solo Japanese team and went on the offensive driving the pace of the breakaway in search of 20 points for a lap gain.

As it stood, Bennett and Will were tied for seventh on three points, well back of Plouffe and Carr on 19 points.

After 15 laps of suffering with Uchino and Ikeda, Bennett and Will completed their lap gain and soared up the leaderboard ahead of Plouffe and Carr.

Maeve Plouffe and Isla Carr were in the fight for the national title. (Picture: Con Chronis)

The national championship door remained ajar for Plouffe and Carr up to the final double points sprint, with the maximum 10 points on offer enough to usurp Bennett and Will, who had dropped off the wheels of their nearest Australian rivals as the bell rang.

However, Uchino and Ikeda were determined to finish off their dominant performance in style and surged off the front of a fatigued front group to win the final sprint.

Tsuyaka Uchino and Mizuki Ikeda from Japan were flying. (Picture: Con Chronis)

The Madison title bookends a terrific year for 19-year-old Will that included an ARA Australian Cycling Team debut, an elite Track World Championships maiden selection and her first elite national title on Friday night in the omnium.

For Bennett, a national champion jersey on the boards is a surprise, but the 2024 National Road Series winner has shown she can match it with Australia's best in track bunch races.

"This is my annual (track) race, I come here and do the Madison once a year. It's 15 minutes from my house and I'm just here to have fun and I was just lucky enough to get paired with Keira — she was an absolute beast," Bennett said.

"She brought the best track rider out of me.

"We kind of knew they had come over to race the UCI C2 Omnium to get points so they obviously were fit and we were looking out for them but we were mostly focussed on the Aussie teams.

"But once we saw the Japanese girls go again we knew we had to be on that move and we worked really well with them and got that lap which put us in front, which was great."

Feature picture: Con Chronis/AusCycling