Fred Wright ended his wait for a professional win in style as he became British men’s road champion in Saltburn hours after Pfeiffer Georgi claimed the women’s title for a second time.
The popular 24-year-old paid a heartfelt tribute to Bahrain Victorious team-mate Gino Mader, who died on June 16 following a crash at the Tour de Suisse, pointing to the sky as he crossed the line.
“There’s lot of emotions,” Wright said. “I’m thinking about a lot of things…I just wanted to enjoy the day because that’s what bike racing is about. I can’t stop getting emotional…
“(Gino) would have believed in me today, more than I would have believed in myself.”
Wright earned fans with have-a-go heroics that brought podium finishes from breakaways at the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana last year, but had somehow still been awaiting victory at the top level.
But after he left behind James Knox and Stevie Williams on the last of 10 laps of a punishing course – including more than 3,500 metres of ascent – there would be no near miss this time.
Knox and Williams are purer climbers than Wright, but the 24-year-old Londoner rode smartly, attacking on the descent to the foot of Saltburn Bank, the short but steep final climb which provided the finale with gradients reaching 22 per cent.
“I was really pleased with the way I rode it,” Wright said. “I probably had the best legs of my life out there. I knew that compared to them I had to edge it on the downhill and the flat so I used that to my advantage to use as little energy as possible. It was just all guns blazing to the finish.
“I still can’t believe I’ve got my first professional win, it’s a monkey off my back.”
Earlier, Georgi attacked on Saltburn Bank to distance Claire Steels and Anna Henderson, reclaiming the jersey she won in Lincoln in 2021 before finishing second to Alice Towers in Castle Douglas last year.
“It’s so special,” Georgi, now a two-time national champion at the age of 22, told the PA news agency.
“It still hasn’t sunk in. After I won the jersey in Lincoln, I really wanted it back because it’s such an honour and it gave me a lot of confidence in the peloton turning up with the stripes.
“I’m really happy to get it back. It’s hard to win it once and it’s really hard to win it twice because I think everyone looks at you a bit more. Coming into Lincoln I was maybe a bit more unknown but this time I had more pressure that I kind of put on myself.”
Both races were hugely attritional. Of the 101 riders who started the women’s race, it was clear with more than two of the seven laps remaining that only seven were contenders for victory.
Steels kept attacking, but when Georgi tried a move of her own on the penultimate ascent of Saltburn Bank she saw she could distance her 36-year-old rival, and she repeated the move on the final lap to take the win.
“I was doubting myself that I was the strongest so I thought I needed to test where I was,” she said. “After that I got the confidence that I could actually win it.”
While the women raced in heat and humidity, the skies began to break midway through the men’s race with sunshine giving way to showers, and showers giving way to torrential rain and thunder at the start of the penultimate lap.
That was about the time that Bahrain-Victorious announced their eight-man squad for the Tour, with no surprise that Wright was in it.
“I’ll go to the Tour with a lot of confidence,” he said. “I’ve won the national championships, I’m happy at the moment, and I’m going to keep trying.”
On this day 2013: Six-time Olympic champion Sir Chris Hoy announces retirement
Six-time Olympic champion Sir Chris Hoy announced his retirement from competitive cycling 11 years ago, admitting: “I know it is the right decision.”
The 37-year-old Scot had been contemplating continuing until the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow but revealed he was quitting the sport at a press conference in Edinburgh on April 18, 2013.
Hoy was Britain’s most decorated Olympian after his haul of two gold medals at London 2012 saw him surpass rower Sir Steve Redgrave’s record of five, although he was overtaken by former team-mate Sir Jason Kenny in 2021.
In explaining his decision, Hoy said: “I think in sport at the highest level you’re dealing in such small margins and you can tell when you’re good but not good enough.
“It was very emotional coming in there (to the press conference) and I was trying not to watch the video montage with the sad music.
“I don’t want it to be a sad moment.
“I want to celebrate it and be happy because I know it is the right decision.
“It’s a decision that I didn’t take lightly and I thought about it very hard.”
As well as six Olympic titles, Hoy’s 13-year career featured 11 world titles and two Commonwealth crowns.
Hoy’s final race was the Olympic Keirin final on August 7, 2012 – on the final day of the London 2012 track programme.
Following retirement, Hoy pursued his passion for motorsport, including competing in the Le Mans 24 Hours, while he has also written children’s books.
In February 2024, the 48-year-old announced he was undergoing treatment for cancer.
Tom Dean has no regrets about going public with Paris 2024 ambitions
Tom Dean insists he has no regrets about making public the extent of his Paris 2024 ambitions despite a setback at this month’s British Championship that left his quest to claim five medals in the French capital hanging by a thread.
The 23-year-old bullishly proclaimed his plan to seek to eclipse his long-term rival Duncan Scott as the most prolific British athlete at a single Games shortly after surging to prominence by winning double gold in Tokyo.
But third-place finishes behind Scott and Matt Richards in both the 100 and 200 metre freestyle finals mean Dean is only certain to compete in one individual event – the 200m medley – plus two relays, unless either of his rivals choose to streamline their Paris hopes.
Dean told the PA news agency: “When you put yourself out there it comes with the risk of being exposed and falling short, and it makes the feats of those incredible champions who make the claims and go out and back them up all the more impressive.
“It was a conscious decision and a source of motivation. I had a long conversation with my coach and my agent and we decided it was something we wanted to do. It is very much still on – there is a lot of individual and relay potential in Paris – and it’s still at the forefront of my mind.”
Dean is the first to admit there are parallels between his own decision to go public and Adam Peaty’s ‘Project 56’, in which he made plain his drive to smash the 57-second mark in the 100m breaststroke, and subsequently to go on to set a world record that could never be beaten.
Like Dean, Peaty has endured a recent rollercoaster, picking up a relatively disappointing pair of bronze medals at the World Championships in Doha in February, although he bounced back by booking his berth in Paris with his fastest time since winning his second straight Olympic gold in Tokyo.
“There’s not an ounce of arrogance or over-confidence about it,” said Dean. “It’s us going out and saying, we’re the only people who have won individual gold medals, we’ve won world and Commonwealth golds, and we have the belief that we can go and do it again.
“It’s what puts the fire in your belly, it’s what gets you up in the morning and pushes you on. That’s how I’ve been feeling since I came home from Tokyo, which feels like two days ago. I want to go out and win as many medals as possible.”
The notion of adversity is a strictly relative one for Dean, who overcame two bouts of Covid at the start of the delayed Tokyo Olympics year, which forced him to spend seven weeks away from training and left his hopes of even reaching the Japanese capital in serious doubt.
The rest is history as Dean went on to become the first British swimmer to win two golds at the same Games in 113 years, his subsequent record-breaking medal haul at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games sealing his place in the spotlight and culminated in him being awarded an MBE by Princess Anne.
For Dean, being pipped by two world-class rivals is an inevitable result of being part of one of the most competitive freestyle eras – and one of the most promising domestic relay squads – for many decades in the sport.
“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t tough at the moment to put a positive spin on things, but I’ve always been able to do that and even if it still feels a little bit raw, there’s plenty of good things to focus on for France.
“Adam is leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the British field, while my events are the most competitive in the world. I’ve been on the podium with Duncan and Matt so many times and we are separated by just a few hundredths of a second.
“Again, it’s how you deal with that level of competition that will define you. I think the fear of failure is something that could be positive or negative. It’s the spin that you put on it – if you use it to your benefit, that’s when you can become pretty unstoppable.”
Paul extends rich form with double gold; Browne, Campbell also among T&T's medals at PanAm Track Cycling Champs
Trinidad and Tobago’s ace cyclist Nicholas Paul continued his rich early season form as he wrapped up another double gold medal-winning outing at the just-concluded Pan American Track Cycling Championships in Los Angeles, California.
Paul’s medals were won in his customary events, the men's Keirin and Sprint, and followed his fairly successful outing at the UCI Championships in Hong Kong where he recovered from a two-cycle collision in the Keirin to win the Sprint.
The 23-year-old again expressed gratitude for the continued support as he represents the twin island republic with much gusto.
“It is always an honour to represent my country and the Pan American region. Thank you to everyone for all the love and continued support. The Journey continues and the next stop will be the Nations Cup in Milton, Canada. So, I just want to continue putting in the hard work and let it show in my performances,” Paul said.
In the Keirin, Paul topped Colombia’s Kevin Quintero, while another Trinidad and Tobago cyclist Kwesi Browne copped bronze.
However, it took a photo-finish to separate Paul and another Colombian Cristian Ortega for the Sprint crown. Paul bettered his South American rival in the first ride before edging ahead in the second ride on the line by millimeters to retain his title.
Meanwhile, Akil Campbell was also among the medals, as he won a bronze medal in the men's scratch race.
In other results at the meet, Alexi Ramirez finished eighth in the women's elimination race and in the women's scratch race, while Makaira Wallace and Phoebe Sandy placed 13th and 17th in the women's sprint qualification, respectively.
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