In the final major event before Rio Paralympic selection, Great Britain Cycling Team won four medals on the opening day of the UCI Para-cycling Road World Cup in Belgium.
Simon Price, Karen Darke and the pairings of Steve Bate and Adam Duggleby and Lora Turnham and Corrine Hall all reached the podium in Ostend following a day of fiercely competitive time trialling in the coastal town.
Price took the first British medal of the day in the C2 time trial, completing the 16.7km course in a time of 25:01.58, to finish third, just under 20 seconds behind race winner Tristen Chernove of Canada.
Great Britain Cycling Team's @simonpricey thrilled with #paracycling2016 world cup time trial bronzehttps://t.co/kCcaDCrI7a
— British Cycling (@BritishCycling) May 20, 2016
Price said he was thrilled to pick up a world cup bronze medal:
“Really pleased to finally get on a podium in a time trial. The whole focus of the last six months has been to come here and hit a podium and close the gap on the top guys in the category and we achieved that today.
“We knew where we were, we knew what we were capable of. It’s good to get it out on what was potentially quite a tricky course, so yeah, really pleased.”
Karen Darke took silver in the H3 time trial with yet another solid world cup performance. She posted a time of 31:27.31 to finish second behind Italy’s Francesca Porcellato.
The tandem pairing of Steve Bate and Adam Duggleby kick-started the afternoon session for Great Britain Cycling Team with time trial bronze.
They completed a 25.05km course in 32:49.77 to finish third, with the independent duo of Vincent Ter Schure and Timo Fransen claiming gold in a time of 32:05.00.
An excellent first day in Belgium was rounded off with silver in the women’s tandem time trial as Lora Turnham and Corrine Hall finished in 36:38.72 with the Irish combination of Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal picking up gold.
After the race, Turnham said it had been an encouraging day:
"It was a really good performance. We were really pleased with our ride, so it's a good result."
.@loraturnham & @Corrinehall pleased with #paracycling2016 World Cup TT silver - but eyeing up gold next time! pic.twitter.com/NfjB3b5Z63
— British Cycling (@BritishCycling) May 20, 2016
Hall added: "It's been a good ride. It would have been nice to get closer to the Irish but plenty of time to hopefully get them back!"
Elsewhere, and two-time track world champion Megan Giglia finished third in the C2 time trial in 29:42.71 – although she didn’t receive a medal as she finished outside the time limit.
There were fourth place finishes for Jon Gildea in the C5 time trial and David Stone in the T2 category, with Stone, making his return to the Great Britain Cycing Team, edging out teammate Craig McCann who finished fifth.
Hannah Dines continued her consistent start to the Paralympic year with fourth in the T2 time trial and fresh from the Invictus Games in Orlando, Florida, Jaco van Gass completed his 25.05km time trial in 37:51.63 to finish ninth.
Newly crowned track world champion Louis Rolfe switched to road for this weekend’s event and finished seventh in the C2 time trial in 26:11.94 – ensuring that all British riders took top ten finishes on the opening day of the world cup round.
Attention now turns to road racing, with H and T category riders in action on Saturday.
