News: More Gold for Sarah Storey

Dame Sarah Storey added to her collection of world titles while Jaco van Gass won a debut road world championship medal on a dramatic day three at the UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships in Emmen, the Netherlands.

News: More Gold for Sarah Storey

After her victory in Thursday’s time trial, Storey completed the seventh double of her astonishing career by winning the nine-lap road race, as team-mate Crystal Lane-Wright crashed on the final corner. The two Britons were part of a strong breakaway group, but the race came back together somewhat as the pace dropped in the final stages. However, Storey positioned herself perfectly going into the finishing straight, and – as other riders went down – swept to victory, leading home Germany’s Kirsten Brachtendorf and the USA’s Samantha Bosco.

Storey said: “I’m so chuffed to cross the line first – to win a second gold medal this week is something I genuinely didn’t expect; it wasn’t a selective course and it was a slow, quite tactical race.”

Elsewhere, van Gass earned a fantastic silver medal in the MC3 event (nine laps), fighting back after getting caught behind a crash to storm to second in a sprint finish. He was just kept off the top spot of the podium by Germany’s Steffen Warias, while Great Britain team-mate Ben Watson finished fifth. Van Gass said: “It was an extremely fast race. On the third or fourth lap there was a crash that sent me into the barriers, then I had to jump up as quickly as possible and catch up, which was basically a full-on time trial effort to get back on to the group.

“I’m extremely proud of myself. This means a great deal – with Tokyo next year this puts me in a good place. I’m eager and I’m hungry, so there are exciting times ahead.”

Katie Toft (WC1) won her second silver of the championships, finishing behind China’s Wangwei Qian as she did in Thursday’s time trial. Riding with the C2 and C3 categories, both riders admirably stayed with the bunch until deep into the seven-lap race, but it was the Chinese rider who finished the stronger to take gold. Earlier on in the day, Will Bjergfelt and the tandem pairings of Lora Fachie and Corrine Hall and Steve Bate and Adam Duggleby all ended up in fourth in their respective categories, as the penultimate day of competition threatened to turn into one of near misses for Great Britain.

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Bate and Duggleby got in the decisive break during the first half of their 14-lap race, as five pairings pulled away from the peloton. Those five bikes stayed together to produce a sprint finish for the medals, which was won by Dutch duo Tristan Bangma and Patrick Bos. Spain’s Adolfo Bellido Guerrero and Noel Martin Infante took silver and Poland’s Marcin Polak and Michal Ladosz bronze, leaving Bate and Duggleby agonisingly empty-handed.

The women’s race (over 11 laps) stayed together for far longer, before an attack from the Swedish pairing animated the final stages. However, they were reeled back in over the final lap, and a sprint for the line again decided the medals, with New Zealand’s Emma Foy and Hannah van Kampen edging Ireland’s Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal out for gold, while Fachie and Hall were beaten to bronze by Polish pairing Justyna Kiryla and Aleksandra Teclaw.

Bjergfelt missed out on a medal in similar fashion, recording his second fourth place of the championships in the MC5 race (12 laps). The Briton helped to drive the relentless pace in the opening laps, but as the race progressed a strong-looking trio of Lauro Cesar Mouro Chaman (Brazil) and Daniel Abraham Gebru and Martin Van de Pol (both Netherlands) broke away to establish a healthy lead.

However, the bunch worked together to bring them back inside the penultimate lap, and as Italy’s eventual winner Andrea Tarlao launched a decisive attack off the front, Bjergfelt remained in contention for a medal. He found himself up against last year’s winner and Thursday’s time trial gold medallist Alistair Donohue in the finishing straight, but was just unable to match the Australian for pace, finding himself narrowly edged down into fourth.

Matthew Robertson did not finish the MC2 race.
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STONE EDGED OUT OF MEDALS IN TIME TRIAL
On Friday, David Stone was an agonising three seconds away from MT2 bronze as Great Britain just missed out on adding to their medal tally on the second day of competition at the UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships in Emmen, the Netherlands.

After some typically bold riding, Stone crossed the line in 35:03.71 after two laps of the 10.4km course, missing out on the podium by a matter of seconds, as the USA’s Ryan Boyle took bronze in 35:00.95. Great Britain’s Craig Collis-McCann was fifth in 35:18.34, while Germany’s Hans-Peter Durst – the 2017 champion – won with a time of 34:06.93. Karen Darke replicated Collis-McCann’s finishing position as she came home in fifth place in the WH3 category. Darke overtook a number of her competitors to cross the line first, in a time of 36:19.93, but a series of fast-finishing riders behind her pushed her down the leaderboard.

The USA’s Alicia Dana recorded an impressive winning time of 34:41.53, while Renata Kaluza (Poland) took silver and Anna Oroszova (Slovakia) won bronze in a time of 35:39.23. Hannah Dines recorded a sixth-place finish in the WT2 category, stopping the clock at 45:51.99 after crashing in the final stages of her effort. The winner – Australia’s Carol Cooke – completed the two-lap course in 38:11.66, while the silver and bronze medals went to Jill Walsh (USA) and Marie-Eve Croteau (Canada) respectively.