News: Josh Giddings Tops at Assen

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Josh Giddings (MI Racing Academy team) recently won his category at Europe’s premiere youth stage race, the Jeugdtour Assen, in Holland.

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News: Josh Giddings Tops at Assen
(Thanks to Lisette Derksen for the pics.)

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East Midlands cyclist Josh Giddings competing for the local MI Racing Academy team recently won Europe’s premiere youth stage race, the Jeugdtour Assen, in Holland.

Josh, who tops British Cycling’s rankings for his category, and is a first year bodes well for next year, rides for the MI Racing Academy team which aims to help young riders learn and progress in the sport.

The Dutch race, over six stages, attracts the best young riders from all over Europe and is designed to expose these riders to all the key elements of road riding; short and long distance solo time trials, circuit racing, point to point racing and even including racing over the infamous cobbled roads.

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Josh, who’s dad Geoff is a former British champion in cyclo-cross, surpassed all expectations in winning the prologue time trial and then proceeded to win the next stage in a dominating fashion so much so that he was awarded the rider of the day.

By the end of stage 2 there were effectively only three riders left in contention for the overall. Over the following days, another win and two second places with one of these in the time trial saw Josh going into the final day with an overall win assured baring mechanical mishap.

Josh was able to control the race and even went for the Points competition as best sprinter. With an 8 point gap to close, he finally missed out on taking another jersey by a single point.

The race was one of Josh’s big targets for 2016 and the commanding and mature way in which he rode, coped with the pressure and delivered, belies the fact that he is still only 13 years old.

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Josh and very proud dad, Geoff Giddings

Stage by Stage:

— Prologue (Stage 1): Won by Josh

— Stage 2 was a criterium where one of the top three riders got 30 secs and was in yellow on road before Josh attacked with Innes Harvey and they crossed the gap, taking over a minute out of bunch. It set up the race for those three rider who then fought for yellow over the next 4 stages

— Stage 3 was a classic rolling closed roads place to place race where Josh was second, extending his lead to 14 secs.

— Stage 4 was a Time Trial which was a concern as the 2nd overall rider was a TT specialist and Josh did lose five seconds to him in the time trial but they were head and shoulders above the rest.

— Stage 5 was the Omloop on the clincker bricks and cobbles and the one that Josh went for the White jersey sprints, missing it by 1 point so ended second.

— Stage 6 Josh went for the Green jersey as well as the overall as there were three sprints and he got the gap down from 8 points to 1 point to finish 2nd. Whilst he had shown over and over he could have won the stage, he played safe and rolled in 7th after leading his friend Innes Harvey and Fleur Nagtegaal out for the stage (poor Innes was 3rd overall and had a mechanical on stage 5 loosing 12 mins (Innes got 2nd on the stage Fleur 6th).

Josh and his dad Geoff are now off to Belgium for a road race to finish the season off

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