Photos added: Hargroves Cycles rider, Jon Dibben, finished 4th in the Junior version of Paris Roubaix on Sunday. The winner of the first round of the Peter Buckley Trophy National Series in Wales, Dibben had to miss the second round to take part in the Nations Cup event along with other top British juniors Harry Tanfield, Chris Latham, Same Lowe and Josh Papworth.
Thanks to Jerry Dibben for the pictures …. GB line up on the podium before the start.
While the race was won by Florian Senechal of France, Jon says to VeloUK he was happy with this result. Well sort of. “I am little gutted to miss the podium as it was close” he says. “I was feeling ok after the first 40 minutes and it was a real battle to get positioning going into the first section of cobbles. There were a couple of breaks away but I hit the sectors in about fifth wheel in the bunch so although the legs were not great on them, I stayed right up there.”
“After the first sector, I started to feel a lot better and stayed near the front, hitting the cobbled sectors in a good position each time. It is real natural selection on the cobbles with riders dropping off the back on each sector. On sector 10, it split up and we caught the break and a group of about 30 came together. I then got in a move on the tarmac, four of us and over the next 10 kilometres, another five riders came across to make a group of nine. There were three French, three Belgian, a German me and a Dutchman.”
The team leader for the British squad was Owain Doull but he crashed hard in the feedzone and so Jon carried on, rolling through in the break. Over the next sectors, the lead group split and was down to five after sector 3. Then, Senechal went before sector 2 and with no organised chase, the gap between him and the chasers grew quickly. Another Frenchman then joined the chase group Jon was in and sat on the back. Jon picks up the story. “There were a few moves in the last couple of k which saw four of us going for the sprint for 2nd. I was starting to feel tired in the last few k as I’d run out of food a bit earlier on and so finished 4th in the sprint. I’m still quite shocked that I was up there in the top 5” he said finally.
Jonathan has an ‘easy’ weekend coming before a busy period of travel where he has a three day Nations Cup in Croatia, then the Isle of Man weekend (three day race)Â before a five day event in the Czech Republic, another Nations Cup stage race.
1. Florian SENECHAL Â Â Â FRA Â Â Â 3:04:57
2. Alexis GOUGEARD Â Â Â FRA Â Â Â +1:05
3. Maarten VAN TRIJP Â Â Â NED Â Â Â +1:05
4. Jon DIBBEN Â Â Â GBR Â Â Â GBR Â Â Â +1:05
18. Owain DOULL Â Â Â GBR Â Â Â +3:32
39. Sam LOWE Â Â Â GBR Â Â Â GBR Â Â Â +5:56
43. Christopher LATHAM Â Â Â GBR Â Â Â +7:19
