Grace Garner (Podium Ambition-Club La Santa) won stage one of the Essex Giro Two-Day event, round five of the British Cycling Women’s Road Series, near Sudbury on Saturday.
The win capped a remarkable week for both rider and team, Grace having won a stage of the prestigious Tour Series on Tuesday in Croydon and the overall individual title in that series, while the team secured the overall series prize in Portsmouth on Thursday evening.
With little recovery time coming into this three day stage race, a lot of riders were admitting to apprehension about their form, Garner particularly so, admitting that for the entire 107km she had felt “very heavy-legged… I was really feeling it, trying to stay near the front of the bunch.”
Nonetheless, when it came down to the final analysis Garner produced her trademark explosive sprint that left the trailing pack of riders in her wake, her winning margin growing to around 10 bike lengths in the final 100 metres of the race. Behind her, a fine second and third place for series leader and winner of the previous round Nikki Juniper and her Ford EcoBoost team mate Charline Joiner reflected the dominance of the teams who had done much to control affairs for the entire race.
Day one gallery
A sprawling, technical and undulating 13-mile course on the Essex borders was completed five times and dominated the whole way by the bright orange and fluro pink of Ford EcoBoost and Podium Ambition.
Any individual move either team made was quickly countered by the other and any other teams with their own intentions of setting up a surprise win, were shot down as soon they gained anything more than a few seconds ahead of the peloton.
Although this had the effect of nullifying the race as a spectacle, the action was rarely less than breathless and as early as the second lap, one by one a succession of riders found themselves being shelled out of the back of the bunch, victims of the high pace being set at the front.
As rider after rider attempted and failed to break away, it quickly became evident that with a further two stages of racing to come, nobody was going to allow anything to stick.
Ford EcoBoost had a mightily impressive engine room at the head of the race in the shape of Melissa Brand and Julie Erskine, the latter trying a break at the back of the circuit which immediately saw a pink Podium Ambition blanket swarming all over her.
And as the race headed to an inevitable sprint finish climax, Ejay Harris of the latter team was immensely strong on the front driving the pace and making a late race attack impossible.
A crash at the back of the bunch close to the turn into the finishing straight reflected the nervousness of the riders and left a smaller group of around 30 of the original 60 starters in the main bunch, Garner crossing the line to take the win with some ease.
“We wanted to be the dominant team because we felt we haven’t represented ourselves as well as we can do in this series so far,” explained Garner.
“We’ve been on the back foot a bit but the win for the team in the Tour Series gave us a big lift so we were very positive coming in to today.”
Joiner’s massive smile following her third behind Garner and Juniper reflected how happy the team were to place so highly with two stages to come, and Ford EcoBoost Directeur Sportif Nick Yarworth confirmed the team’s intentions for the race: “It’s three stages, so today was about getting everybody back safe, packing the top ten and setting it up for tomorrow.”
A two-stage second day on the Redbridge circuit awaits the riders on Sunday, the first being a three-lap individual time trial, followed by a 75-minute circuit race.
With Garner, Juniper and Joiner receiving 30-, 20- and 10-second time bonuses from Saturday’s stage, the race is set up nicely for a high octane finale.
