NEAH EVANS was the stand-out performer at the Glasgow leg of the Revolution Champions League yesterday, taking victory in the women’s elite points race in the afternoon session before claiming further victories in the madison time trial and the elimination scratch race.
The 27 year-old, racing for Storey Racing, gave the home crowd plenty to cheer about as the dominant rider of the day at the Sir Chris Hoy velodrome. Within a few minutes of racing beginning, Evans secured what turned out to be a relatively comfortable win in the points race ahead of Kirsten Wilde of Team Rowe and King by 81 points to 59 with Emily Nelson in third and former Olympic team pursuit champion Dani Rowe in fourth. “It’s obviously always really nice to win,” Evans said. “And it’s even better to win in front of a home crowd”
Evans’ impressive performance came off the back of a run of good form as only a few weeks ago, the Aberdeenshire rider claimed her first-ever World Cup gold as part of the GB team pursuit quartet at the Manchester World Cup. Earlier this year, Evans decided to take a break from her career as a vet and move to the British Cycling headquarters in Manchester to have a crack at being a full-time cyclist. Her decision is paying dividends already but her improved form does also bring with it increased levels of expectation. “There is a bit more pressure than there used to be,” she admitted. “People only see results and they think you’re going to do that repeatedly but there’s a lot of other factors that those people don’t consider. I obviously want to win every time but that’s just not going to happen. So that’s why it was really nice to get the wins here.”
And after an enforced period of time off the bike during the summer, Evans is edging back towards her best form which, with the 2018 Commonwealth Games now just four months away, is, she admits, hugely encouraging. “I definitely feel like I’m really getting back up there,” she said. “And what is so nice is that every time I go out and race, I feel like I’m improving.”
One of Scotland’s rising stars Jenny Holl, who has recently been invited to join British Cycling’s senior academy and as a result has relocated from Stirling to Manchester to become a full-time athlete, gave an excellent account of herself in amongst exalted company. The 18 year-old was pipped into second place of the elite women’s scratch race by fellow teenager Jessica Roberts but Holl claimed the scalp of Olympic gold medallist King, as well as her compatriot Evans. “I’m pretty tired,” Holl said in the minutes after the race. “It was really brutal. We had been out for about eight laps and it was pretty fast. I was just thinking to myself to make sure I stayed away from the bunch and try to get as high a placing as I could – I actually thought we were going to get swamped but we didn’t.”
While Holl is still in the fledgling stages of her senior career, she admits that missing out on the win by such a tiny margin was, she admits, a major disappointment. “I’m not going to lie, it’s pretty gutting to lose such a close one,” she said. “But I’m happy with second. It’s nice to be in the mix in races like this. I think this shows that I can hold my own and actually animate the race rather than just react. I feel like I’m gaining so much experience all the time – although the races don’t get any easier. But it’s been great to race back in Scotland.”
On the men’s side, Jamie Alexander looked to have pipped his fellow Scot Lewis Stewart to third place in the men’s sprint after both were eliminated in the semi-finals. However, the Glasgow rider, who won the first sprint of the third place ride-off before losing the second but attacking Stewart from behind to take the remaining one on the line was disqualified for an infringement.
He made up for that in the men’s handicap sprint though, claiming third behind Dominic Suozzi and Jean Spies, with Stewart in fourth.
The crowd were also clearly excited to see triple Olympic champion Ed Clancy in action, with one of the biggest cheers of the day coming when he won the men’s elite elimination scratch race ahead of his fellow Englishman, Matthew Gibson.
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