Simmonds wins at National 25 Championships
National record holder and defending champion Hayley Simmonds (Team WNT Pro Cycling) proved a convincing winner at the Women’s National 25-Mile Championship in Hampshire on Saturday afternoon.
The 30-year-old from Cambridgeshire made it four national 25-mile championship titles in a row as she clocked 50-05 for the P881/25 course near Greatham, taking victory in an event staged by CTT and …a3crg.
That time was 33 seconds quicker than her nearest rival, with 27-year-old National Closed Circuit Champion Emma Lewis (The Independent Pedaler) taking second with a personal best time of 50-38, while third spot went to former national 10-mile competition record holder Anna Turvey (Tyneside Vagabonds CC), another 28 seconds off the pace.
“It’s been seven weeks today since I had surgery on my elbow,” said Simmonds. “And my father in law passed away recently, so it’s been a couple of tough weeks.
“I wasn’t sure how the course was going to run. I drove it last night and again this morning but it felt different while riding to how I thought it would feel.
“I thought maybe I would do a 51-52, so to do a 50 is a really good time for this course. And on the middle roundabout that you go straight over I was held up every time – four times in total - losing 5-10 seconds each time.”
The P881 course started and finished near Liphook, and mainly used the A3, heading down to a turn near Liss before retracing north east to Bramshott before returning to near the start point.
In the junior title races, Welwyn Wheelers’ Oliver Stockwell was fastest male with 50-30, giving him the win by just six seconds from Tom Temple (Primera Team Jobs), while Tom Cornwell (In Gear Quickvit RT) was third.
And in the girls event, Elizabeth Marvelly (Liv AWOL) clocked 56-52 to leave Caitlin Peters (i-Team CC) second by just over one minute, while Eva Callinan (Hillingdon Slipstreamers) was third.
Marvelly said: “It went a lot better than I thought. I’ve struggled with my TT results this year so I didn’t expect much.
“I went out quite hard and felt good. Everyone tells you to go a bit slower early in a 25 but I felt good. I’ve only done a couple of these before so I don’t really understand the pacing yet.
“I’ve raced with Caitlin a lot and she’s very fast so she was my main competition, when I found out that my ten mile split was 40 seconds quicker than her that gave me a real boost.”
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