GB Star at Para-cycle Tour of Bizkaia
Report: National Coach, Chris Furber
Event Dates: 2-4 May 2008
A team of 7 GB Para-cyclist headed to mainland Spain at the end of last week for the XII Para-cycle Tour of Bizkaia 2008, based in Bilbao. The team consists of Sarah Storey LC1, Darren Kenny CP3, Simon Richardson LC3, Russ White and Gary Williams both LC1, Rachel Morris HCB and David Stone CP2. The race consisted of between 3 and 4 stages dependant on the category. Gorgious blue skys and temperatures into the 20's have greeted the GB team when they arrived in Bilbao and the racing was equally as hot.
Gary Williams follows a wheel
In Friday's TT stages the World Champions David Stone and Rachel Morris dominated their respective categories posting great times. Simon Richardson finished 2nd LC3 and Darren Kenny was 4th CP3. Gary Williams and Russ White finished 7th and 8th respectively and World Pursuit Champion Sarah Storey won the women's event.
Saturday morning's stage was a 3.5km Hill Climb to Zollo. There were wins for David Stone and Sarah Storey. Darren Kenny was 3rd and moved up to 3rd overall in his category. Simon Richardson rode well again and the mantle of fastest Brit was passed to Russ White, from it's usual holder Gary Williams, after Russ stormed to the 7th fastest time overall.
Darren Kenny on the hillclimb stage
David Stone in crit action, above, and on the podium afterwards, below
Saturday morning saw the GB team heading out of Bilbao and to the local town of Mungia for the 4th stage of the Tour of Bizkaia 2008. The picturesque town has long hosted the exciting road race stage of the tour and the race also doubled as the Basque Para-Cycling Championships. A 60 strong field rolled out for the 50km race which was held over 5 laps of rolling countryside. The field combined Men and Women and riders from all the "bike" related Para-cycling categories CP and LC.
The pace was pretty hot early on and riders began to drop from the main bunch but all the main contenders for GC were watching each other and any move was quickly pulled back. With 3 laps to go all 5 of the GB riders were safely in the lead group and controlling things well for overall top GB rider Russ White.
Russ White - leading GB contender going into the Road stage
As the pace yo-yo'd on lap 4, Multi World Champion Darren Kenny rode to the front of the bunch in an effort to lift the pace and make it harder to break-away, but his move was not covered by any other rider and he was able to slip off the front of the bunch and build an unchallenged advantage. As the bell sounded for one lap to go, Kenny had built a very useful 60 second lead with another rider.
Sarah Storey, dominant in the women's race
Tactics for the rest of the GB riders then changed to disrupting the chase and both Russ White and Gary Williams did excellent jobs in the face of some strong riding from the Spanish and Italian teams. Kenny rode brilliantly to stay away for the duration and outsprinted his fellow escapee to take the stage win. Gary Williams was 5th in the bunch sprint and Russ White, Sarah Storey and Simon Richardson all finished in the first group. Sarah Storey took the win in the women's classification.
Speaking after the race Darren said "This is one of the biggest wins of my career, after this morning's time-trial I didn't feel like I had the form for a win but once I got away I started to believe!"
Four Brits on the podium: including, from the extreme left, back row, Darren Kenny, Sarah Storey & David Stone, plus Rachel Morris, front row in the red polo shirt
In the Trike race it was another accomplished performance from David Stone who won with Josef Winkler (CZE) second and Rachel Morris made it 4 Brits on the podium by winning the women's handcycle event with an aggressive ride which saw her break all but one of her male opponents to take second place overall. Both David and Rachel also took overall GC wins in their categories and the bicycles have one stage to go tomorrow - a 1.2km closing TT at the Fadura Velodrome.
