Updated: 08 April 2014
Tuesday (08th April) marked the fourth and final stage of the ScottishPower Youth Tour of Scotland. With the Scottish sun shining over 110 Youth riders took to a short circuit closed road course in and around the stunning grounds of Strathallan School and Forgandenny village.
Setting off for 10 laps on the fast paced, narrow course first was the Youth Girls. From the start Caira Doogan (Ireland Neenan Travel), Madeleine Gammons (Team MSW Composite), Sarah Bradford (WoSCA Girls) and Rhona Callander (East Mid Scotland 1) were looking like strong contenders for the win.
3 laps in, Yellow Jersey Callander and Road Race stage winner Doogan started to break away from the group, followed by Gammons, Bradford and Doogan’s team mate Kim Baptista. Doogan’s persisted with Callander slipping back into the main group with team mate Jenny Holl’s support. Coming up the steep incline heading to the line leader Doogan suffered a puncture leaving Bradford, Callander, Holl and Rosa Martin (Fred Whitton RT) to push ahead.
Doogan was unable to regain her leading position as going into the final lap the front group had a 30 second clear gap in front of her and the chasers. There was fantastic team work at play with Callander and Holl supporting each other to the finish. East Mid Scotland Rider Holl crossed the line just ahead of her team mate Callander and Bradford making it an all Scottish podium.
At the end of the Tour, Stirling based rider Callander retained the Yellow Jersey. Jenny Holl’s stage win, with a winning time of 48:43, moved her into Second overall with Bradford in third. Team East Mid Scotland 1 reclaimed the Team Jerseys with Team MSW Composite sliding down to third. With Doogan’s misfortune, Callander accumulated enough mountains points to add the Queen of the Mountain jersey to the Points and Leading Scottish jersey she already held, making it a complete domination of the jerseys for East Mid Scotland 1.
Following on from a thrilling Youth Girls race, it was now the Youth Boys turn to show the crowd what they could do. From the start the boys were looking strong as they headed onto the 2.55km course. The first casualty of the short, winding course was Finn Crockett who pulled out due to a mechanical followed shortly by Aberdeen District RT rider Lewis Goodlad.
After 5 laps the bunch were hurtling round the course at 32.8kmph completing laps in around 4 minutes, lapping a number of riders. Going into lap 8 the bunch was still holding together well however Sports Traiders RT member Peter Kibble broke away into the lead. With 6 laps to go Kibble was being chased by a bunch of 18 riders, however he was 30 second ahead.
With less than five laps to go, Kibble punctured, wiping out his lead and getting dropped with one cruel stroke. Team HT3 rider Harry Hardcastle and Edinburgh based rider Matthias Barnet (Mid East Scotland) took the opportunity at the climb to break away from the peloton into the lead.
The peloton was pushing forward but there was still a 25 second lap in between Hardcastle and Barnett going into lap 12. As the bell rang to mark the start of the final lap Hardcastle was 9 seconds ahead of Barnett, with the peloton 30 seconds behind the leader.
In the final lap Barnett fall back into the group, and going into the final climb Hardcastle had a clear lead. With a finish time of 1 hour 8 minutes Hardcastle crossed the finish to claim the win followed by Barnett, who had recovered enough to attack again on the climb and escape. Yellow Jersey Sebastian Dickens won the bunch sprint for third place.
Results:
- Jenny Holl 48:43
- Rhona Callander at 0:03
- Sarah Bradford at 0:15
- Rosa Martin at 0:34
- Kim Baptista at 1:32
For full results please click here
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