John Carter attacks to second scratch race national title in three years

The elite men's scratch race national championship has returned to John Carter after 12 months apart in the final race of the 2025 AusCycling Track National Championships at Anna Meares Velodrome in Brisbane.

A motivated Carter latched onto an attack from Queensland's James Moriarty with 11 laps to race that turned into a race-winning move for the Western Australian.

The duo worked together seamlessly, piling the pressure on the disjointed bunch behind them.

Victoria's Logan Taplin burst out of the bunch with six laps to go and nearly bridged the gap, but ran out of gas and was left in no man's land between the front two and the chasing group.

Behind in the bunch, New South Wales' Cameron Scott pulled a big turn at the front of a heavily reduced main group that contained his teammates Kurt Eather and Andre Dubier, Tasmania's Josh Duffy and last night's points race national champion Rohan Haydon-Smith (Queensland).

Moriarty led Carter through as the bell rang for the last lap, who was perfectly positioned to make his winning move around the outside of the Queenslander heading into the final corner to win by a bike length ahead of a fast-finishing Haydon-Smith.

Eather pipped a resolute Moriarty at the line to win bronze.

Carter, 21, now has three elite track national titles after winning this event in 2023 and riding in Western Australia's victorious team pursuit squad last year.

"Really stoked. Started off the week fairly well, I was pleasantly surprised with the podiums in the IP and kilo," Carter said.

"Last night's points race was obviously pretty dismal and gave me some good motivation for the scratchie today.

"I'd won it before and I really, really wanted it today and got to know throw the pre-planned cellies and everything, so that's great.

"I think Jimmy went first and then he got brought back and Noah went, stayed out for quite a while. The only thing to do was just keep the bunch rolling through as long as long as no one sat up and no one got a big gap it was definitely closeable.

"It came back and I was just in a good spot, I saw Jimmy start to go and I picked the wheel and we worked really well together.

"I do back myself, I mean I was definitely hurting – it's been a long week. But I'll always back myself in the sprint finish."

Feature picture: Mackenzie Sweetnam