A squad of six Great Britain Cycling Team riders will head to the Czech Republic for the latest round of the UCI Under 23 Nations’ Cup, the Course de la Paix from 29-31 May.
Scott Davies, Germain Burton, Gabriel Cullaigh, Mark Stewart, Alistair Slater and Jake Kelly will contest the race, part of the season-long series in which up-and-coming athletes ride for national rather than trade teams.
The team
Great Britain raced the early salvo of Nations’ Cup races with Owain Doull as nominal team leader, the squad travelling to the Ronde Van Vlaanderen Beloften, La Cote Picarde and the three-stage ZLM Roompot Tour.
A late puncture for Owain Doull blunted his podium chances in Flanders but the Welshman made amends in La Cote Picarde with a second place finish before placing seventh overall at a windswept ZLM Roompot Tour in the Netherlands, collecting a brace of podiums on the way.
However the 22-year old Welshman will be absent in Czech Republic giving another of his Great Britain colleagues a chance to shine.
While road manager Keith Lambert’s plan for the race remains under wraps, Scott Davies will hope to shake off an illness picked up at Fleche du Sud and impress on the race’s tough parcours, having ridden wheel-to-wheel with the UCI World Tour’s best at Tour de Yorkshire in early May, finishing 12th overall.
The 19-year-old Welshman followed it up by claiming the youth classification at the UCI 2.2. Fleche du Sud, finishing a fine sixth on general classification, while Doull took two stages and the points jersey.
Davies will be joined by Jake Kelly, Germain Burton, Gabriel Cullaigh and Mark Stewart, all of whom rode with Davies in Yorkshire, with Alistair Slater returning to the fold to compete in his first Nations’ Cup of the campaign.
The race
The Course de la Paix or ‘Peace Race’ has a long and rich history. Originally created in 1948 as a way of easing tensions between the Eastern Bloc states, the race was held in former Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Poland, contested by amateur riders, largely from Eastern Europe.
The original race was eventually cancelled in 2006 however the name lived on and the Course de la Paix returned as a UCI 2.2 under-23 event in 2013. The event has been granted UCI 2.Ncup status for the first time in 2015.
Stage one
The 2015 ‘Peace Race’ begins with a 122-kilometre road stage from Jesenik to Rymarov in the mountainous Olomouc region of Czech Republic. Three climbs at Ramsovske, Zarova and Skritek punctuate the parcours before the race heads onto the finishing circuit for two laps, ahead of a likely bunch gallop into Rymarov.
Stage two
Stage two from Glucholazy to Praded is slightly shorter at 113.6 kilometres but what it lacks in length in makes up for in difficulty, with a long climb to the finish topping out at around 1400 metres above sea level on the highest mountain in the Hrubý Jeseník mountain range.
Stage three
The final stage, a loop starting and finishing in Jesenik, is the longest at 160.1 kilometres and features four tough climbs along the way before an uphill finish in the race’s host town.
How to follow the race
Reports, results and team reaction from each stage will appear on the British Cycling website.
Links
