There's a Belgium World Cup going on but the British Cycling twitter was dead all yesterday and it's Paralympic qualification year. Stop ittttt. Here's where you get the results (blog published 11:52 CEST with the results available on):
Yesterday was the start of the time trials for all three-wheeled riders. The organising committee was panicking because there were 53 MH3 entrants. That's the male, chest-level, spinal cord injury classification who race on recumbent handcycles. In comparison, the most able-bodied male category, MC5 had only 17 entrants! It pushed all the handcycle TTs deep into the evening! Shout out to Ireland's MH3 Declan who was 4th of 53 WOW. Best performance of the comp for me? Maybe.
Today it's the Cs.
Road race for me and all three wheelerz and then the Cs road race the day after!
The trikes raced first and there was a block headwind of 30kmh. Most exciting things that happened was that in the men's trike TT a trike (Aussie, Stuart Jones) spontaneously flipped (no cause- was just the instability of the trike at high speeds)- he had deep dish wheels on and he was going the fastest out of the all the trikes and set to win. He flipped, broke his collarbone, was lifted back on and was so far ahead he finished in 3rd place (in a field of 21).
The men's podium was like a war zone, Joan Figuerola (silver) had crashed in the last World Cup and his face was black and blue and then Stuart (third) had his arm and knee in a bandage. Ryan Boyle World Champ stayed upright for gold. If you see him race you'll be in disbelief. Hehe trikes.
GBCT boys Craig and David came 5th and 7th respectively.
The other exciting thing is that I got a bronze medal for the first time in a field of Aussies and Americans WITHOUT breaking my collarbone #proud! We don't win any prize money but we do win Belgian Beer (8.8%). I was a bit tired and wobbly (CP not beer) after my effort and whilst chatting away to gold medallist Carol I fell sideways by mistake. I managed not to break the bottle and I think people were more impressed at that than my medal (I agree tbf).
The other week I did a spreadsheet to see just how many WT2 trikes there could be if they all turned up- most stop because of financial reasons or that the classification is unfavourable. Today there are only around 8 active female WT2s. If I had the power to give all the girls funding to turn up there could be 33! Aka only 15% of women who make it to international level stick around after the first 3 years. For those who don't podium in the first year of trying and have to race independent of support from their national governing body, 90% give up. Frustratingly there are high enough numbers within the drop outs for a potential additional classification of which I could be trike queen of course, ha.
Anyway, I'm f%$*king proud of myself; I had super invasive surgery 3 months prior to racing this race and it's more than a 30kmh headwind pushing me backwards from the podium but sooo many people have been helping me push back. 4mins 21 off gold and 2mins 30 off silver who was 1min 48 off gold herself. That's how it goes with trikes and the verrry wide classification margin. That medal is mine and it is glorious and it's all of ours. For all we know that could be my field in Tokyo...just sayinnnnn let's keep pushing.
Karen Darke raced after me and she got silver- only 10s off gold! She had a field of six all brand new riders. All of her usual competitors only raced in World Cup in Italy 4 days ago, not World cup round 2. Dangerously strong and powerful that one.
Then it was the boys with the huge classifications: Alex B-T had shown incredible skills in World Cup round 1 in Italy 4 days ago coming 7th out of a hugggggeee field.
Unfortunately a pedestrian walked in to him in this World Cup round 2 costing another top 10 position (both pedestrian and wheeled strong-man are unscathed). 18th for him behind British triathlon's Joe Townsend a place above Mark Allen.
Of the MH3s Luke Jones was top 20, Dan Hopwood top 30 (out of 54!!!).
Today the Cs are racing and here's where they've placed so far (see bold)...Crystal matches Karen's silver and Katie Toft might be the only British female gold of the competition! Awks as she's not even a funded athlete for the 5th year running. Cmonnn.
There's only one more woman (well 2 for 1 technically) to ride out of the GBCT team- Lora and Corrine. Bon chance xx
Independent
MC2 Ryan Taylor 18th
MC3 Jaco Van Gass
MC4 George Peasgood
MC5 David Murphy
(54) MH3 Luke Jones 29th
MH3 Dan Hopwood 18th
(31) MH4 Joe Townsend 16th
MH4 Alex BT 17th
MH4 Mark Allen 19th
MH5 Matt Faucher 13th
WT2 Hannah Dines bronze
WC1 Katie Toft GOLDD
WB Laura Cluxton piloted by Laura Clode
GBCT
MC2 Matt Robertson 9th
MC2 Simon Price 13th
MC3 Ben Watson
MC3 Fin Graham
MC5 William Bjergfelt
MT2 Craig Collis-McCann 5th
MT2 David Stone 7th
WB Lora Fachie piloted by Corrine
Hall
WC5 Crystal Lane-Wright silver
WH3 Karen Darke silver
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