National Cross Championships
‘Veteran’ Mountain biker Nick Craig showed the young riders how to ‘cross yesterday, winning in really muddy conditions. Craig showed how his all-round talent and experience in road and international mountain bike racing pays when the going is really tough. He beat Olympic 5th place rider Liam Killeen. Matt Ellis was in 3rd after being runner up to Roger Hammond for the past few years, he missed this great chance to claim top spot.

1 39 Nick Craig (Team Scott)
2 53 Liam Killeen (Specialized)
3 43 Matt Ellis (Planet X/On One)
4 45 Shaun Snodden (Recycling.co.uk/MGX-Power)
5 33 Oli Beckingsale (Team Scott)
6 47 George Richardson (Ritchey.Cycle-Ops/Kona/Pallgap)
7 57 Rob Jebb (Wheelbase/Ron Hill)
8 40 Adrian Timmis (Pinarello RT)
9 3 Philip Dixon (Ace RT/Farmers/Impsport/Dolan)
10 30 Steve Knight (MI Racing/Fuji/Thule/Sports Tours)

Experience also paid off in the Women’s race. Louise Robinson beat Victoria Wilkinson to take the crown yet again. She beat the young professionals Nicole Cooke and Helen Wyman, with Gaby Day (Bottecchia/Fat Birds Don’t Fly) finishing 5th. Cooke was also ridng at the World Cup in Manchester the previous day finishing just out of the medals in the points race. This year will see her try out a few disciplines to see which suits her best…

1 1 Louise Robinson (Stourbridge CC)
2 17 Victoria Wilkinson (Science in Sport.com)
3 3 Helen Wyman (Toyota Motor Company)
4 16 Nicole Cooke (Safi-Pasta Zara)
5 4 Gabriella Day (Team Bottecchia/Fat Birds Don’t Fly)
6 2 Clare Gross (Ace RT/Farmers/Impsport/Dolan)
7 6 Michelle Bergstrand (Eastern Region Velo/Bianchi)
8 25 Hazel Wakefield (Individual Member)
9 9 Lydia Gould (Hargroves Cycles/Trant/Next/Scot)
10 7 Claire Lines (Gateway RT)

Elsewhere; Jonathan McEvoy (Liverpool Century RC) won the Youth race and Alex Atkins (Evans Cycles RT) took the Junior race by over two minutes. Philip Spencer (Trek UK) won the under 23s and former professional and Tour de France rider Adrian Timmis won the Vets’ race (he also came 8th in the seniors on the following day!) .

Track World Cup – Manchester
An impressive showing from the GB team at Manchester over the weekend shows that we have a good chance of medals at the World Championships this March.
Gold in the Kilo for Chris Hoy, Gold for the Team Pursuit Squad (who looked as if this might be the right time to take on the Australians), Gold for the Olympic Sprint team, Silver for Emma Davies in the Pursuit and an excellent Silver in the Women’s Sprint for Victoria Pendleton. Frenchman Mickael Bourgain won the £10,000 first prize in the invitational Japanese Keirin.

Kenny takes Hour
However, perhaps the highlight of the weekend was Darren Kenny setting new figures of 41.83kms for the CP3 (Cerebral Palsy) hour record. This was a fantastic acheivement for the multi talented Paralympian who adds this victory to his Gold medals won in Athens last year.

Special thanks to the BBC for excellent coverage, long may it continue!