Racing

Red, white and blue: what does it mean to pull on the British champion’s jersey?

Defending women's champion Lizzie Armitstead and former men's winners Brian Smith, Kristian House and Russ Downing reflect on their time as national champs

Sunday sees the British National Road Race Championships take place in Stockton, with the country’s elite men and women battling for the right to pull on the blue, white and red striped jersey.

Run every year since the British League of Racing Cyclists and the National Cyclists’ Union merged in 1959 (there were two separate races prior to that year), the roll call of former winners include the great and good of British Cycling.

Winners of the men’s race include Mark Cavendish, Bradley Wiggins, Geraint Thomas and Peter Kennaugh in recent years, while Robert Millar, Sean Yates and Roger Hammond are also among the former champions.

On the women’s side, Nicole Cooke and Lizzie Armitstead were both British champions at the time they won their world road race titles, while Mandy Jones did it the opposite way round – her second British title arrived the year after she became world champion.

It is a jersey recognised throughout the world of cycling, thanks to the exploits of those former winners – think Roger Hammond’s Paris-Roubaix podium in 2004 or Cavendish’s Tour de France stage wins in 2013, for example, or Armitstead sealing UCI Women’s Road World Cup victory in the jersey by winning last year’s GP de Plouay.

Pete Kennaugh won the 2014 and 2015 men’s national road race (pic: Sirotti)

But that hasn’t always been the case. “I was in Italy with three other team-mates, as national champion [in 1991], and we were on the startline for the GP Camaiore and some of the Italians were asking what the jersey was – I felt a wee bit embarrassed about it and had to tell them,” 1991 and 1994 winner Brian Smith recalls.

It was at the start of the 1990s when the jersey began to get more exposure, however, with higher-profile winners taking the stripes abroad with them.

Smith admits finishing runner-up to Sean Yates the following year was ultimately beneficial in the long term, given Yates was in the blue, white and red stripes at the Tour de France just weeks later.

Recent national champions
2010: Geraint Thomas, Emma Pooley
2011: Bradley Wiggins, Lizzie Armitstead
2012: Ian Stannard, Sharon Laws
2013: Mark Cavendish, Lizzie Armitstead
2014: Peter Kennaugh, Laura Trott
2015: Peter Kennaugh, Lizzie Armitstead

In 1993, it was Malcolm Elliott who emerged triumphant – with Smith again second – and he wore the jersey when winning the Redlands Classic in America.

“The second time I won it, everybody knew what that jersey was,” Smith says. “It was nice to wear that jersey twice in my career, they’re proud moments when I think about it.

“When I won it the second time, it meant a bit more. The first time it was great to win, but your year doesn’t last that long. It was something [1974 and 1980 winner] Keith Lambert said to me when I won it the first year at Newport – he said ‘now enjoy it’ and I don’t think the first year I really did.

“I’m not the sort of person who likes to stand out. I like to stay in the crowd, and to pull the national champ’s jersey on – you stand out.

“The second time I won it, I went to the Vuelta Burgos, and I pressed a lift and walked in, went down a floor – standing there in my race kit, with my national champ’s jersey on – and next minute Lance walks in with his world champion’s jersey.

“He looked at me, and said ‘well done’, it being the first time we’d seen each other since, and I said ‘yeah, but it’s not as many stripes as you’ve got!’”

Alongside prestige, the jersey does bring pressure too of course – after all, when you’re wearing a bright, white jersey there’s not many places to hide in the professional peloton.

Kristian House, winner in 2009 – and the last man from outside the WorldTour to win the jersey – remembers the pristine white of the jersey being one of the things which stood out to him.

Sean Yates took the British champion’s jersey to the 1992 Tour de France, and Brian Smith believes that helped boost its reputation (pic: Sirotti)

House, born in Kent but raised in Texas before returning to race in Britain, won from a four-man break ahead of Daniel Lloyd, Chris Froome and Peter Kennaugh in Abergavenny that year, but it’s not the race he remembers so much but the reaction.

“Probably one of the funniest things about all of it was the setting,” he recalls. “We got changed in these rugby changing rooms, and I remember going over with the jersey on and hanging it up in this concrete building while I had a shower and the thing just looked so white against the wall – it was so dark and dirty and the thing was almost glowing.

“And when I came out the car park, which had been full, was now empty and my team car was there, and mine in the middle of the parking lot.

“At the time I was driving this little Fiesta, and you kind of had to be there but it was hilarious because it was just this little car in the middle of a parking lot and there I am with a jersey worth almost more than the car! The whole thing was a bit surreal, a bit comical.”

Ian Stannard, pictured in the British Champion's jersey at Milan-San Remo 2013, has proved himself as a Classics contender (pic: Sirotti)

Smith says the jersey can be both a blessing and a curse in that regard though.

“It meant so much to me, but the thing about the national champ’s jersey is when you’re on a good day it’s brilliant, but when you’re on a bad day everyone sees you,” he admits.

For current women’s champion Lizzie Armitstead, however, the pressure is something she has relished since first pulling on the national champion’s jersey in 2011.

Most national road race championship wins
Beryl Burton – 12
Nicole Cooke – 10
Marie Purvis – 5
Lisa Brambani – 4

The history of the women’s race has traditionally seen one woman dominating an era; Beryl Burton, winner of the first senior women’s race in 1959, won 12 of the first 16 editions and both Lisa Brambani (1986-1989) and Marie Purvis (1990-1993) won four in a row as the 1980s turned into the 1990s. In more recent years, Nicole Cooke was 16 when she won for the first time in 1999 and the Welshwoman then won every edition from 2001 to 2009.

Cooke’s final win saw her beat Armitstead and Pooley in a three-way sprint in Abergavenny before House’s triumph the same day, and Armitstead has not been off the podium since.

Where that was Cooke’s era, this, it’s fair to say, is Armitstead’s. Winner in 2011, 2013 and 2015, the Yorkshirewoman says any added pressure of wearing the jersey is offset by the pride of pulling it on.

Lizzie Armitstead says any pressure the jersey brings is offset by the pride of wearing it (pic: Boels-Dolmans)

“Every race I do I have pressure,” she says. “My whole job revolves around managing pressure, it’s something I have become very used to and comfortable with. But, to be honest, I’m always proud to pull on the champion’s jersey.”

This year, Armitstead has swapped the blue, white and red stripes for the rainbow jersey of world champion, which means she will be afforded the rare privilege of racing the nationals in the rainbow bands.

Nicole Cooke was the last women to do so, in 2009, while Mandy Jones was world champion when she won her second title in 1983 and Beryl Burton was twice afforded the honour of racing the nationals as world champion. Mark Cavendish missed the men’s road race in 2012, however, when he held the rainbow jersey.

“It will also be special to ride on home soil in the nationals in the world champions stripes as it’s not something many people get to experience in their career,” Armitstead adds.

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Armitstead and House’s experiences in the jersey – like those of other recent winners such as Peter Kennaugh, Thomas, Wiggins, Laura Trott and Emma Pooley – is in stark contrast to Smith’s, and indeed some of their other contemporaries like Russell Downing.

Downing won in 2005, and took the jersey to the Tour of Britain where he joined brother Dean in a memorable breakaway on their home roads, en route to Sheffield.

“It was a good feeling, it was a good day out going over Holme Moss and back down into Sheffield,” he says, but he admits it would be on a different level today.

“It’s definitely one good memory of being in the jersey,” he adds. “[But] it was just as cycling was getting popular. If that was now it would be a totally different race – it would be unbelievable – but the crowd was good on the Moss and it was nice coming up the road into Sheffield in the jersey.”

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Unlike Smith, however, there were no embarrassing trips to Italy with a jersey nobody recognised – Downing won the Triptyque Ardennais in Belgium while national champion and has found the honour of being national champion has stuck with him since too.

“Your national champ’s jersey is always recognised wherever you take it and wear it,” he says. “It was a good feeling, and it’s still now – you turn up to a race and people put you down as an ex-national champion.

“I’ve had stripes with flags on, on the sleeves of various jerseys over the years since so people know you’ve won that race.”

House, meanwhile, took the jersey even further afield, winning a stage of the Tour of Japan, and couldn’t believe the popularity of the jersey overseas.

“We raced all over the world, we had a great programme in those years,” he remembers. “Winning the stage of the Tour of Japan was probably the highlight. When we went there it was unreal how much support we had – not just our team, but also me as an individual and not so much because of who I was but because of the jersey.

“Such an iconic jersey, almost a trend or a fad. At one point there was a group of six Japanese people wearing my jersey, with my name on it. I had this picture of us all. It was quite good taking that jersey abroad.

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“The reaction I would get in France or Japan, for example, wherever we went, was very similar to what I would get in the UK.

“The difference, of course, is you’re racing on home ground in the UK. You get more people calling your name out, and you’re racing at home so it automatically has a different feel.

“But the jersey is respected enough around the world so it almost has the same reception.”

Armitstead says: “Every year the domestic scene gets stronger and more unpredictable so the prestige of wearing the jersey increases.”

pic - dvdbramhall, via Flickr Creative Commons

pic - A Shino, via Flickr Creative Commons

But what does it take to win the jersey? In such an unpredictable race, it is about taking charge of your own destiny, Smith says – a sentiment echoed by some of the other former champions.

The Scot points to Simon and Adam Yates missing the race-winning split in Lincoln last year as a prime example of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, while two years ago in Glasgow the race was effectively over as soon as a five-strong group of WorldTour riders raced clear.

Hitting the front, therefore, is key and not slipping into the trap of becoming a passive rider, Smith says.

“The thing about the road race is you never know what’s going to happen,” he says. “The national championships [in my era] were a bit like the Manx International. The racing can be really negative because everybody waits for the climb. Everyone knows the last time up the mountain is the decider.

“Everybody knows the national championships are one race and if you mess up early then that’s it, your chance has gone.

“You always have to be there, you have to be at the front so every year I rode the nationals I was always on the front foot. I knew everybody else would ride it a little conservatively. If you ride too conservatively then you’ve got a lot of hard riding in the back-end of the race, and if you’re riding hard at the back-end then again, that’s it, it’s over.

“You don’t want to sit back and wait – the national championships tend to put people into a false sense of saving energy instead of doing the opposite, getting out there and making sure you’re always in the race.”

It’s also about strength at the end of the race, too, as Smith can attest to after his near miss in 1992.

“With myself and Sean Yates with about 80 or 90 miles to go Yates attacked and I went with him and that was it. We stayed out.

“At one stage it went down to about 20 seconds and Sean came to me and said, ‘look, it’s all or nothing’ and I went ‘you’re right’ so we just gave it everything to stay away.

“Unfortunately for me, Sean was stronger in the end – it wasn’t he was a faster sprinter, just stronger at the end because we’d taken the view of why put in all that effort only for someone to win it from behind. We shared the effort.”

Brian Smith says the key to winning the national road race is always being on the front foot (pic: Sirotti)

Downing had a similar experience in 2006, having joined the race-winning break late before jumping clear with future Team Sky team-mate Steve Cummings.

“I remember it being a really difficult race, it was one of the last years when it was quite long – 235km or similar – and we had a good team that year with Recycling and I was in good shape,” he says.

“It’s always a strange race – a break left early on and I ended up going across later on. It was just a strength thing really – the last hour of the race I felt really good and got away with Steve Cummings.

“It was a pretty tiring race, we were both pretty knackered and nobody wanted to lead the sprint – an uphill sprint – out.

“I left it as late as possible and just about got round him, so there was no coming back for Steve. And then almost immediately after finishing I cramped up straight away!”

Having that strength, however, can be a sign of greater things to come – just ask Armitstead who followed up her victory on the uphill cobbled finish in Lincoln last year with victory in Richmond, USA, in similar circumstances at the worlds.

“I think the first win meant the most to me,” she says. “Especially at the time as I got to pull on the jersey for the first time, but it was a boost to come back from my crash after the first stage of the Women’s Tour last year to win in Lincoln.

“The cobbled finish uphill on the Michaelgate was a handy test!”

Mark Cavendish stormed to a comprehensive stage win at Tirreno-Adriatico (pic: Sirotti)

With Armitstead winning three of the last five women’s races, however, and Team Sky dominating the men’s event with five wins in the six years since House’s triumph, there’s a sense in some quarters that the days of a surprise winner are over.

But Downing and House both believe the right course can still bring a surprise result – and Downing even believes Sunday’s race in Stockton could be exactly that.

Team Sky go into the event with just two riders – Alex Peters and Andy Fenn – as their Tour de France squad opted out, while defending champion Peter Kennaugh and Ben Swift are injured.

Mark Cavendish remains favourite to win a second British title, but both riders believe you don’t have to be on the WorldTour to enjoy success.

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“I don’t think it’s too hard for the UCI Continental guys,” House insists. “There are quite a lot of guys in the UK, riding at UCI Continental level, who are good enough to be at ONE Pro’s level [UCI ProContinental, where House now rides] or even the step up again.

“It’s just about getting that right moment. Yes, the racing is controlled by the big teams but it’s still a race. If you’re in the right place at the right time, you’re going to be in that front split.

“The onus is always going to be on the big teams to take on more of the workload but as long as you race smart and use your head it’s still doable.”

Downing has seen both sides of the coin, given he raced for Team Sky when Thomas won in 2010 and Wiggins followed suit in 2011. But he remains hopeful of an upset in Stockton.

“That course [in 2006] was a hard course but not too hard, it required a bit of luck but if you were in the right move you had a chance.

“Recently, some of the circuits we’ve had have been really hard. The one G won and the other when we were at Sky together in 2011 were really hard circuits.

“It meant the best riders could just ride away but I think this weekend could be back to a British style of race. I’m not saying it will be a surprise winner, but it could be somebody perhaps more unexpected. It makes it an open race, which should be nice.”

Team Sky have won five of the last six editions of the men’s road race, with Mark Cavendish winning the other, but House and Downing insist the domestic riders can still succeed (pic: Sirotti)

Whether the men’s jersey is taken to the Tour de France, or the women’s to the Women’s WorldTour, or even if both stay on domestic shores after Sunday, you can bet the jersey won’t need any further introduction these days, however.