Gerry McManus Reports

Cycling Reports

Report on the Tour of the Cotswolds

Sunday 29th July By Gerry McManus

Email: gerrymcmanus@yahoo.com

Evans takes sixth in Cotswolds Classic

Tommy Evans (Ireland) sprinted well to take second place in small bunch in Gloucester Park after 119 gruelling miles in the Tour of the Cotswolds on Sunday 29th July. In temperatures reaching 32C, Britain’s John Tanner (Pro-Vision-Ribble) notched up another win in the UK Premier race series, by pipping Vincent Templier (St Quentin-Oktos) on the line. These two finished a little ahead of third placed Mark Lovatt (Pro-Vision-Ribble) and Matt Stevens (Sigma Sport) in fourth.

The chasing group was led in at 1’56” by Belgium’s Marek Salerno (Flanders-Prefetex) with Evan’s just unable to pass him after efforts made earlier.

The race took nearly five hours on a course around some of the toughest climbs in the Cotswolds Hills. A group of seven riders had escaped on the first prime hill at Birdlip after only seven miles and the lead was up to three minutes at one point. At the 86-mile prime of Corndean Hill, Evans was in a small group that had bridged the gap to the leaders but Matt Stevens had already broken this group up on his way to winning the overall mountains competition. Evans was unable to sustain the chase to Stevens and returned back to the main field.

On the final and most severe prime of the Fiddler’s Elbow, the first four were already away although Stevens led Templier up to the top of the climb and the finishing order only evolved in the final 12 miles.

Evans was finally pleased with the result, after having thought about climbing off earlier when he caught the Stevens group: “I just blew up and my legs went from me,” he explained, “ I just had to practically stop until I recovered and once the bunch caught me again, I felt much better. The last twenty miles were very tough and the bunch was dead, so on the final steep climb, I made a few efforts and it broke up and we caught the others that had got away with me earlier.”

Unfortunate Morgan Fox was take to hospital for precautionary reasons after he crashed at around 60 miles but was found only to have cuts and bruises. Paddy Moriarty came in at 18th and this should be recognised on a tough day with soaring temperatures. Placings for Danial and Denis Lynch are not yet known due to confusion caused by the photo-finish camera picking up riders that had retired and had taken a short cut.

Team manager Declan Byrne now travels to France with a team for a stage race before returning to the UK for the Havant International GP on the south coast on August 5th.

1st John Tanner, 2nd Vincent Templier, 3rd Mark Lovatt, 4th Matt Stevens, 5th Marek Salerno, 6th Tommy Evans.