8th Challenge International
- Story posted April 28Source Gareth Sheppard (Team Manager)
- 8th Challenge International HandCycling Urt-Bayonne The Great Britain Paracycling Endurance Team competed in the first UCI race of the year in Bayonne, France over the weekend. The race was a 3 day stage race, consisting of Road Race, Time Trial, Sportive and Criterium. Great Britain had a team of David Stone (CP2 category), Rik Waddon and Darren Kenny (CP3) and Welsh rider Simon Richardson in the LC3 category.
- Stage 1
- The first race was a 15km road race for the CP2 Category. David Stone took control of the race from the gun and on a rolling course whittled down the lead group to three riders at the turn, then attacked on climb to solo away to the finish to win the stage and take the red leaders jersey.The first stage for the combined CP3/LC3 category was a 60km road race. This race included Darren Kenny, the reigning Paralympic Road Champion, Javier Otxoa - the Paralympic Silver medalist and former Tour de France Rider and Maurice Eckhard the current World Champion. The race started off quite slowly with the riders all watching each other, until an attack by Juan Emilio Gutierrez on a long drag of a climb after 15km. Rik Waddon immediately jumped onto the wheel and the two immediately got a good gap. Javier reacted and took with him Darren Kenny and it looked like the winning break had been formed. However Juan was just too strong from the others and rode away with the other three who were swallowed up by the bunch. Juan went onto win the stage by 4 minutes 45 with a great solo effort. Javier attacked again on lap 2 and this time Rik went with him. Javier then jumped away from Rik with 10km to go with Rik soloing into the finish to claim third on the stage while Darren and Simon controlled the bunch behind. Darren clipped off with two other riders a few kilometres from the finish and taking 4th on the stage, while Simon lead in the bunch and claimed the leaders jersey in the LC3 category.
- Stage 2 -- Individual time trial
- A change in conditions overnight saw heavy rain for the start of the second day's races. The CP3 riders were the first off, with Darren Kenny doing a strong ride to take 3rd on the stage in a time of 2424 for the 16km's. Both Simon's and Rik's chances were hampered by heavy falls in the rain, with Rik finishing in 6th place in 2654. Simon's time of 2446 was still good enough to take him to 2nd place, with some 30 seconds to make up on the leader Stephane Bahier. David Stone defended his leaders jersey in the CP2 with some style, shrugging off the wet conditions to win the 8km TT in 1513, 2.15 ahead of Dirk Boon from Denmark.
- Stage 3 - Sportive was then cancelled due to the appalling weather.
-
- Stage 4 -- Crit at Hasperren
- The criterium was a combined race for the CP3, LC3, CP4 and LC2 and 1 which meant a large field competing over a 4.2km technical circuit, again in heavy rain. The attacking went from the gun for the hour plus 1 lap race.The team GB riders suffered against the less disabled riders, with Darren Kenny and Rik Waddon both going out the back on the second lap. Simon Richardson rode very strongly with the lead group, gaining over 4 minutes on the leader in his category. However some attacks with 2 laps to go saw him lose contact with the leaders and lose the overall as Micheal Stark, who was just 6 seconds behind him on the overall, hung in with the leaders to take the overall victory. Darren and Rik did enough to take 3rd and 4th overall in the very difficult conditions.David Stone defended his lead in the CP2/1 race with some style again riding away from the field to take victory by 3.50 minutes.Performance Manager Gareth Sheppard commented -- "Overall we are very happy with the level of performance in what is our first team race of the year. To take an overall victory with David, a second with Simon and a third and fourth with Darren and Rik was in line with our expectations for this race.” “The challenge now is to build on these performances for next weekend at Bilbao and hit our first target race- the Para World Cup in Manchester with the riders on good form"
