Welsh Champs 2011

Results

Senior Results

1 Gruff Lewis
2 Brendan Sullivan
3 Niklas Gustavsson
4 Hugh Wilson
5 Dale Appleby
6 Magnus Backstedt
7 Ben Simmons
8 Rhys Lloyd
9 Filip Rudenstam
10 James Lewis
11 John Holt
12 Hefin Price
13 Richard Harris
14 Glyndwr Griffiths
15 Michael Cripps
16 Anthony O'Boyle
17 James Hansell
18 Jack Gibson
19 Richard Bowen
20 Robert Jones
21 Joe Lally
22 Thomas Ashford

Junior Results

1 Dan Pearson
2 Matthew Haase
3 Matthew Thompson

Report

An early break attacked straight away including James Lewis (PTW), Paul Tucker (TVR) and one of the juniors. They got a decent lead on the downhill section towards Bryncethin, but Lewis decided to go on alone. Behind, the strong tail/cross wind was causing the bunch to splinter coming across the common. Team UK Youth forced the pace up to 40mph and formed echelons across the bunch which inevitably caused some huge splits. By the time the race reached the turn point at Talbot Green 7 riders had gone clear from the bunch and joined up with James Lewis, making a break of 8 including Gruff Lewis and Magnus Backstedt with two other Team UK Youth teammates, Brendan Sullivan (Ajax), Hugh Wilson (Wilier), Dale Appleby (Metaltek) and James Lewis. Behind them the bunch was in shreds with riders spread across the road, scrambling to try to stay in the wheels and get back in contact.

Into the headwind back across the common the speed dropped dramatically, but Team UK Youth kept driving the break and it was pretty clear that they would not be brought back. By the time they hit the mountain for the first time the lead was already about 2 minutes. Behind, the main reaction was coming from Ben Simmons (Wiggle), Anthony O'Boyle (Torq), Dan Pearson (PTW) and Owain Doull (Hargroves). Up front James Lewis was struggling a little on the mountain, but kept fighting bravely to stay with the lead selection. Finally on the third time over the pass the elastic snapped and he dropped back to the chasers. The other seven stayed together in front.

Behind, Simmons eventually took off on his own to chase the leaders - but the gap had grown to 5 minutes by this time. Simmons put in one of the performances of the day to battle up to within 20 seconds of the group but was agonisingly unable to close the final few metres and get himself back into contention. He was unable to rejoin because just when he was closest the lead group began to make the decision of which would take the gold medal - with just under 2 laps to go it was Magnus Backstedt that split the group with a huge attack at the bottom of the descent.

Magnus drove hard through the southern part of the circuit and built up a decent lead, but we suspected he was just softening up the others for the real final move, and that came at the same point on the next lap from Gruff Lewis who was followed by Brendan Sullivan. The pair worked together well and got about a minute clear of the rest of the break coming into the final section through Ogmore Vale. The two turned into the closed-road finishing section together, then Gruff Lewis kicked hard on the slight uphill to the finishing line to come in just in front of Sullivan for the gold medal. The group sprint for third was won by Nikolas Gustavson.

The junior race finished slightly earlier up on top of the mountain, where Dan Pearson of Port Talbot Wheelers took a deserved victory after being at the head of the racing all day, ahead of Matt Haase and Matt Thompson (both Cardiff JIF)