Spot Interview – Twice a winner, Tom Stewart

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Tom Stewart wins his second Pearl Izumi Tour Series round in a week and leads Madison Genesis to a team victory

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Spot Interview – Twice a winner, Tom Stewart

Tom Stewart (Madison Genesis), winner of his second round in a week, has proven to be a real star in the Madison Genesis team. After the crit race in Gorey (Jersey) he explained how like the win in Woking on Tuesday, he couldn’t believe winning again in Jersey.

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“It was good, I enjoyed it. It is nice to back up the win in Woking and it confirms a lot to yourself to do that.” On the course, Tom said “I found it very difficult. I could not go with the accelerations of Kristian House and Jon Mould and I was really struggling for the first half of the race until we’d done about 45 minutes.”

“I just kept thinking to myself, they can’t do this forever, they will start hurting eventually and sure enough they did and I went. The only reason I did that was because I wanted to ride at my own pace for a bit and I ended up riding all the way to the finish on my own! That was an added bonus!”

Having got to the finish, comes the next bit, the victory salute and on that he says “I still haven’t worked out a very good victory salute to be honest”. Asked to give his impression on the race in general, Tom says “to be honest, I still don’t feel comfortable in these crits, I find them very difficult, and the only thing you can do to make them easier is to be at the front.”

“I don’t get complacent, I absolutely make sure I’m near the front and if you do that, it always gets easier. That is all I did tonight, stay at the front and the climb did the hard work for us”.

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Asked about his Pearl Izumi Tour Series overall, Tom replied “It has been different for me to a lot of the guys because I haven’t done them all. I came in and did Peterborough and Aberystwyth and then went off to Norway (stage race) and had an easy week and then came here. I have been able to duck in and out and use it to my advantage with training so I have had a great time. I can a see a lot of the guys are tired though”.

Asked how it felt to have stepped up to the upper echelon of the riders in the pro ranks, mixing it with the very top riders, Tom replied “Last year I did one of the Tour Series as a guest rider and I didn’t make it round half the race. I have found though, you get a lot of respect in the Madison Genesis jersey being one of the bigger teams. It is fantastic to be up there with the top guys now, real nice”.

Congrats to Tom. A real star .in the British pro ranks …

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Tom leading his team Madison Genesis to a victory in Jersey

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