Commonwealth Games Road Races

It isn’t very often there are major games on my door step so it was nice to spend a day out on my local roads watching the commonwealth’s best male and female cyclists tackle the Warwick road course. In the men’s race New Zealander Aaron Gate took the gold medal with Daryl Impey of South Africa in silver and Finn Crockett taking bronze for Scotland. It was a bunch sprint in the women’s race and it was Australia who dominated with Georgia Baker taking gold and Sarah Roy the bronze. Neah Evans took a valiant silver for Scotland.

Critérium du Dauphiné

There was a slightly watered down entry for the 2022 Critérium du Dauphiné as Jumbo – Visma brought their Tour de France team but many others had their top riders elsewhere. It was no huge shock that the Dutch team dominated the event with Primoz Roglic taking overall victory and Jonas Vingegaard the runners up spot. Ben O’Connor completed the podium for AG2R Citroen. In the other categories Wout van Aert (Jumbo – Visma) took the green jersey with Pierre Rolland (B&B Hotels – KTM) taking the polka dot jersey. Tobias Halland Johannessen was the best young rider for Uno-X Pro and in the teams competition Jumbo – Visma were utterly dominant.

Coventry Road Club Boxing Day Cross

After missing out in 2020, for obvious reasons), the Boxing Day Cross was back at Kenilworth, as it approaches its 70th year of running. At the front it was a 3 way fight until the penultimate lap when Jason Young broke away to take victory. James Swadling ended up 2nd overall after fighting against the other two riders on the podium, who were working as a team. Completing the podium was Oliver Akers. With the unique nature of this event, having all competitors in one race it was Daniel Alexander who came home 15th overall and 1st veteran rider. Hannah Bayes was the first female rider home, in 33rd overall.

Critérium du Dauphiné

After a covid-19 delay a reduced Critérium du Dauphiné took place in August over 5 stages, rather than the regular 8 stages. With the Tour de France just 3 weeks away it was a final proving ground for the main contenders. Daniel Martinez (EF Pro Cycling) took victory by 29s from Thibaut Pinot (Groupama FDJ) with Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) completing the podium, a further 12s back. It had looked like a Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma) whitewash but a crash on stage 4 saw the Slovenian not take the start on the final day, saving him for the larger objective. The Jumbo Visma team did manage to win 3 of the 5 stages on offer, with Wout Van Aert taking stage 1, Roglic stage 2 and Sepp Kuss the final stage in to Megeve. The other stage winners were Davide Formolo (UAE) on stage 3 and Lennard Kamna (Bora Hansgrohe) on stage 4.

National Track Championships

After a year away we returned to the Manchester velodrome to catch a day of the 2020 National Track Championships. There were a total of six titles decided on the Saturday and they went the following way – Women’s Team Pursuit – Team Breeze (Ella Barnwell, Jenny Holl, Josie Knight, Anna Docherty, Anna Shackley), Men’s kilometre – Jonny Wale (HUUB Wattbike p/b Vita Coco), Women’s scratch race – Ella Barnwell (Team Breeze), Men’s points race – Rhys Britton (Team Inspired), Men’s sprint – Hamish Turnbull (Slingshot) and the Women’s keirin – Lauren Bell (Black Line).

Coventry Road Club Boxing Day Cross

James Swadling (8point8 Group) took an early lead in the 66th edition of the Coventry Road Club / Ride Coventry Boxing Day Cross and never looked like being caught. He crossed the line almost a minute ahead of Richard Jones of Renvale RT, with Joshua Jones of ZeroBC in third. The women’s race was won by Karen Summers who started slowly but passed Fran Whyte (Velobants.cc) at the end of the second lap and continued to forge ahead, Lindsey Newman (Team Jewson-M.I.Racing) took third place.

UCI Road Cycling World Championships – Road Races

After the time trials the road racing starts and on the opening day the Mens junior title took place on the Harrogate circuit. The conditions were damp to say the least and it Quinn Simmons (USA) who broke away to take the title. The following day was back to dry and the Womens junior title went to Megan Jastrab (USA) whilst in the afternoon there was controversy as there was a post race demotion, so the Mens U23 title went to Samuele Battistella (Italy) from a small breakaway group. The last race we caught was the big one and after a rain altered route saw more laps of the Harrogate circuit, the Elite Mens road title was hard fought. Mads Pedersen (Denmark) took a shock win when everyone expected Matteo Trentin (Italy) to win in the sprint.

UCI Road Cycling World Championships – Time Trials

The first half of the UCI Road World Championships in Yorkshire would see the time trial titles decided before the switch to the bunch races. Each day proved to be totally different with rain, to varying levels, one day and the sun and dry roads the next, so it really proved to be a lottery as to which conditions each race would get. The opening day saw the Netherlands take the mixed team time trial. The Monday saw the Womens junior title go to Aigul Gareeva (Russia) in the morning before Antonio Tiberi (Italy) made a courageous comeback to secure the Mens junior title.

Tour of Britain

We only caught the one stage on this years Tour of Britain but it was the home stage in Warwickshire. It proved to be a mirror of the event overall as Mathieu van der Poel (Cornedon-Circus) took the stage up Burton Dassett from Matteo Trentin (Mitchelton-Scott). The riders had one more day to go and van der Peol took the final stage too to win overall by 17s from Trentin with Jasper De Buyst (Lotto Soudal) 50s back and just edging out Pavel Sivakov (Team Ineos).

Critérium du Dauphiné

The Critérium du Dauphiné was a lot soggier than usual but that didn’t detract from the action and incidents. 2017 winner Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) took victory by 20s from Tejay van Garderen (EF Education First) with Emanuel Buchmann (Bora Hansgrohe) third after a memorable week of racing. The other jerseys were won by Wout van Aert (Team Jumbo Visma) the points or green jersey, the best climber was Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck Quick-Step) with a dominant win on stage 6 and the best young rider was Bjorg Lambrecht (Lotto Soudal). The main talking point though was the stage 4 recon accident suffered by Chris Froome (Ineos), which has ruled him out for the rest of the year, minimum.