Hannah Ormesher Wins Cyclo-cross Race

Congratulation to Hannah on her first race win.

 

In the earlier races Joe Kiely secured third place in the Under 12s after a close thought battle with a regular rival and team mate.  Abi Kiely also raced later in the the Girls U14s.

Matt Cress had decided to give the Novice Race of thirty minutes a try after struggling over the hour in previous weeks.  He got off to a good start with a sprint to the head of the field.  After that he continued to work his way round the challenging course, suffering the almost inevitable fall, before finishing well up the field in fourth place out of sixteen riders.

In the main Vets Race John McDowall, Bryan Holland and Dave Kiely took the start line.     Hannah was in the Women’s race that started thirty seconds behind the men.  John’s race started with a powerful sprint to the first bend and then went rapidly downhill, as he was less Sven Nys more Percy Thrower as he undertook regular, unplanned, off-bike, closeup horticultural inspections  of the course.   Only another strong sprint at the finish helped to put some gloss on what had been a difficult race for John

 One to forget for the Kiely Dog as well.  After a gratifying start with some of his trademark kamikaze cornering undertakes on display into the early corners. He had looked set for a competitive outing on the sort of twisting course that he excels at.  Unfortunately, a long list of mechanicals have afflicted Dave over the last few cross seasons.  So many mechanicals, of such a bewildering variety,  that his long suffering team mates had begun to think that there was nothing else left in the velo-galaxy that could possibly go wrong.  Alas,  he managed a new one here and rolled a tub on an off-camber section ending his race after half a lap.  Bryan, after a steadier start in the hurly-burly of the starting sprint, was away and off into the distance bossing a difficult course for an impressive ride in such changeable and difficult conditions.

Bryan came 27th overall (89 riders) and 15th in the Vets.  John was 52nd and 31st respectively.  

 

Hannah got a good start off the front row of the grid and was in second position into the first bend. After a few corners she felt confident enough that she could pass  the first placed rider and make up some time in and out of the corners and hopefully establish a gap.  After overtaking the leading woman the next job was to get past the tail end of the vets as quickly as possible as passing places on the course were few and far between, and what opportunities there were often felt very risky. Hannah hoped that the more vets she passed quickly, the more obstacles there would be to the women behind her. It was a surreal experience leading the race and being chased rather than chasing down. She tried not to think too much about it and concentrate on keeping her riding focused.

The course was tricky and as mentally demanding as it was physically. Hannah took out a couple of course markers during the race with her pedals and thankfully managed to charge through and uproot them rather than falling off! The course marshals can't have been very impressed! 

The race felt long as the laps were taking over 10 mins a go. Each lap got progressively more slippery. Hannah could see by the third lap she had established a decent buffer on second place and the goal for the last lap was trying not to make too many mistakes. As she went through and got the bell for the final lap the leader finished the race soon after and cut second place off to finish her race. Hannah was grateful to just be able to ride round the last lap, knowing it was in the bag and crossed the line thrilled with the win, giving a celebratory punch in the air.