Tough final day for Great Britain Cycling Team in Maniago road races

Tough final day for Great Britain Cycling Team in Maniago road races

Navigation:
Home

There were no further medals for the Great Britain Cycling Team on the final day of racing at the UCI Para-cycling World Cup in Maniago.

Steve Bate and Adam Duggleby’s gold medal in the time-trial plus silver medals for Crystal Lane and Craig McCann in the time-trial and road race respectively were the highlights of the weekend as the team eased themselves back into action on the road.

In today’s road racing Will Bjergfelt and Simon Price were the first British riders on the course in the C5 and C2 road races. 

Bjergfelt was part of an attack on lap one that left the rest of the field trailing by over a minute. On the final lap he tried to launch an attack of his own but couldn’t get up the road and eventually came home in fifth place, a credible performance in his first international para-cycling road race.

Bjergfelt expressed satisfaction with his race and weekend as a whole: “Yeah I’m really happy with that," he said.

"You never really know coming from the outside, how good everyone is going to be. It was really good to get there, get into the break and get a really good grounding and knowledge of who’s who and how each rider rides. I’m happy with that. It was a hard race.”

Price was forced to abandon his challenge after being involved in a crash, a mechanical issue ending his participation.

Crystal Lane and Liz Saul were next up in the C4/5 women’s road race and Lane in particular, looked a good bet for her second medal of the weekend but just faded in the last couple of laps to finish in sixth place. Saul also finished in sixth in the C4 race.

That left Steve Bate and Adam Duggleby in the afternoon’s tandem racing with the early morning sunshine giving way to thundery showers, providing an extra challenge for the riders on a testing course.

Adam and Steve in the road race in Maniago

The double Paralympic champions couldn’t repeat their success of Friday, an early break leaving them with too much to do and they crossed the line in 8th place.

The team will now head to the second round of the UCI Para-cycling Road World Cup season in Ostend, Belgium next weekend as they continue to build towards the UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships in South Africa in September.

The squad for Belgium will be announced on Tuesday.