NEWPORT CITY COUNCIL | WELSH CYCLING | ROBERT PRICE BUILDERS MERCHANTS | OWEN CONSTRUCTION | NEWPORT FORD

| THE COURSE | THE CHARITY RIDE | NICOLE'S INTERVIEW | THE RACES | INTRODUCTION | FORMER WINNERS |
| WOMEN COMPETITORS | MALE COMPETITORS | JULIAN WINN INTERVIEW | RACHEL HEAL | COURSE WITH JULIAN |

BRITISH CYCLING
WOMENS NATIONAL ROAD RACE CHAMPIONSHIP

Saturday 28, June 2003:

NEWPORT (Wales), On a hot and sunny day in the hills around Newport, Nicole Cooke was crowned the 2003 Womens British Cycling National Road Race Champion. The fourth time she has won the championship. Prior to the race, many predicted that it would come down to a handful of riders and so it proved as the rolling course on roads which sapped the strength of the best women in the UK, played to the strengths of Nicole who finished alone atop the climb in the Celtic Manor five star Resort.

Nicole, Rachel and Vicky Pincombe were together with less than five miles to go when Rachel, Vicky and Nicole started to attack each other. First to break was Vicky and then with only 125 metres to go on the final climb, Nicole attacked one more time and managd to put 8 seconds into Rachel to repeat the result from last year when it was Nicole first and Rachel second.

After a slow start along the A48 where Helen Saunders and another rider got away to build a 50 second gap before the start of Wentwood, the action started almost immediatley as the riders hit the first of thee steep pinches on the Wentwood climb. One by one, we went past riders struggling with the pace set by the riders such as Vicky Pincomb and Nicole Cooke. By the time we caught them on the motor bike, Nicole was making her final dig near the top of the climb and we saw the 8 strong group become three as Nicole, Vicki and Rachel ride away from the rest.

The only action we saw after that was Emma Davies attack the riders in the chase group and start to gain in the leaders but the inroads were only small and even on a motor bike, it took us a lap to cross the gap from the chasers to the leaders.

Minutes after winning the British Cycling National Road Race Championship for the 4th time Nicole Cooke said "I was not as confident as I have been in previous years. I had a pretty bad crash at the start of the month and I had 10 days out so it wasn't the best preparation, but I knew this was an opportunity I couldn't miss here today."

"So I trained the best I could to recover and get in the best shape I could for today and basically at the start of the race I wasn't feeling particularly good, but the first time up Westwood hill, I thought it would be a good place to split up the main bunch and I thought we would get it down to a group of five or six but in the end it was just the three of us and we had a good group there."

The moment when Nicole had another dig and the group split for the last time with Emma Davies the last rider to be dropped at which point, Nicole, Vicki and Rachel, formed a group for the next 60 miles until the final climb before entering the Celtic Manor Resort when they started to attack each other. Just ahead of them is Helen Saunders who drifted off the front on the A48.

"I think we were all motivated and it worked really well." Explaining why she left until late to go for the win, Nicole said "The reason I didn't split it up sooner or go for the solo win, I must admit I didn't have the legs I felt I would have, and in the end, Rachel was a very good competitor. She pushed me very hard and I really had to dig deep to win today. It made it all the nicer that I had to work hard for it because, if it had been an easier ride, I may have taken it for granted but I had to work hard to win the British Champions jersey and I am very proud to have won it here in front of a home crowd."

When asked where she got away for the last time, she said "with about 200 metres to go, I made a big effort."

As for her form now after her crash, she said "I still think I am a level down and because of that I'm not taking part in the Giro this year. I intend to have a good training month in July, and work towards peaking in the middle of August and holding it to the World Champs. So my objectives for the end of the season are the Europeans in the middle of August, rounds of the World Cup at the end of August and beginning of September and then I am going all out for the World Championships."

I then grabbed a quick word with last years silver medallist, Rachel Heal (above) who repeated the effort this year. . Rachel didn't want another silver and having moved up a level, felt she could win it. She certainly push Nicole harder than probably many expected and when I put this to her, she said, "Its good to have pushed harder than I have before…."

Asked about the decisive moment when they started to race each other after working together for most of the race, she said "with about 125 metres to go. We had been attacking each other since the bottom of Belmont but Nicole opened a gap and that was it."

Finally, I asked has she been worried about the unknown rider, Vicky Pincomb, who had not raced with either Rachel or Nicole before. "She was really strong but we managed to drop on Belmont (Near the top so eye witnesses say)".

As for Vicki Pincomb's reaction, she said when asked how many races she had done, she struggled to remember and could only name Cheltenham adding that the others had been low key events. Vicki was certainly the talk of the race as a new talent had been revealed. With her partner watching her do the race of her life, the girl from Milton Keynes soon had the GB Manager approaching her --, he, like everyone else, impressed by her ride.

Vicki went onto say when asked how she felt the race went, "The thing is I have raced a lot of the girls here in the other two bike races, and they poodle along and when it comes to the end, I don't sprint, and I don't practice it, so they get me. But here, we worked really hard and that is what I prefer."

She certainly looked comfortable when I witnessed the moment the race went from a group of 8 to a group of 3. Was she I asked? "I was yeah. Slowly, I was getting more and more tired, and the last two laps my legs were gone on the hills. But again, I'm not used to the bike racing, so I wasn't sure what they were going to do. "I couldn't believe it when the three of us broke away".

And just as we had not heard of her, both Nicole and Rachel were also unknown quantities to Vicki although she had at least heard of Nicole. As for whether she would like to do more racing, the answer was "I want to get into the cycling. In duathlon, my strongest point is my cycling, and I enjoy it more than the running.

And then, after having trading pedal strokes with two of the worlds best, I asked whether she had ambitions of perhaps doing the Olympics. "I have, but I don't think I am that good. I'd love to."

Somehow, I think on that display, Vicki showed she certainly has the talent and perhaps one person who may want to see more of that on the international stage is GB manager Dave Mellor. The Great Britain Womens Endurance manager has a reputation for giving riders with talent, a shot at riding with GB in internationals and it will be interesting to see whether Vicki is a rider who also gets a chance to race at the highest level.

When I spoke to him after talking to Vicki, he said "We're always on the look out for new talent and that was an amazing ride and I hope she remembers that. We have two of the worlds best riders here in Nicole and Rachel, and to trade pedal strokes, and she didn't miss a turn, and it was only Rachel's attack on Belmont that saw her off. So I hope she remembers it for a long time. I'll obviously be having a chat with her."

"She's another emerging talent. Long may it continue."

RESULTS

 1. Nicole Cooke           Ausra Grodis-Safi  3.32.45
 2. Rachel Heal            TREK UK            @8 secs 
 3. Vicky Pincombe         Team Milton Keynes @40 seconds
 4. Emma Davies            Life Repair RT     4.52 
 5. Frances Newstead       AC Slumberland     5.48 
 6. Charlotte Goldsmith    Team Luciani       6.29
 7. Nina Davies            Team Letchworth/Extran 7.21
 8. Angela Hunter          GS Strada/Rudy Project 8.42
 9. Catherine Hair         Team Lucanio         st
10. Sara Waller            Python RT/IXI        @8.49

Junior
1	Amy Hunt		Giant Racing Team

U23
1	Nicole Cooke	Asura Gruodis – Safi
2	Catherine Hare	Team Luciano
3	Lorna Webb	Life Repair CRT

Note: We'll have more pictures later in the week. .