Saint Piran WRT heads to the National Champs

Thursday 23rd, Friday 24th and Sunday 26th June saw the 2022 National Time Trial, Circuit and Road Race Championships held in Scotland.

The importance of the National Jersey brings in the highest level of rider and the competition is fierce across all three disciplines.

Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances our staffing availability was at its lowest, we were having to manage from afar but confident in the ability of our team mechanic Harry who was on hand for both the circuit and road race.

First up, the Time Trial. A 22.1km loop, the sun was shining and it was hot! We had one rider, Christina Wiejak who was 2nd rider off at 17:16. Christina had recce’d the course and was confident going into it. This positive outlook changed with a significant level of disruption pre race. Having had her bike checked and measured, Christina then found out with minutes to go that her set up was incorrect and some last minute alterations were required in order for her to start. All of the issues were put aside and Christina settled into a great ride and came away 18th out of 25. A fantastic result.

Next, the circuit race. Always guaranteed to be full of action with tough racing, thrills and spills. 1 hour and 5 laps of racing over a 1km circuit. A fast circuit with a hairpin into the finish straight. An early crash split the field with a number of our riders getting caught on the wrong side of a number of riders on the floor. One of those riders was our own Gwenno Hughes. Despite coming down hard, her brand new Salice helmet definitely did it’s job judging by the dent! Gwenno is a tough one though and was able to start the road race on the Sunday. As expected the racing was full on from the off, Gemma was able to bridge across to the front group whilst Lilie, Maddie and Hannah were in a chasing group and pulled prior to the last few laps. Gemma finished with her best result at a National Champs in 25th. A great ride from the entire team.

Saturday gave the team the opportunity to ride together, recover and socialise as they enjoyed a course recce prior to Sundays Road Race.

Sunday, the Road Race. The weather was atrocious! To the point where riders were questioning whether or not to start. We have a strong belief that if a rider isn’t confident to race then there is no pressure but to get onto the start line of a national championship race is a huge privilege and just to start in such bad conditions is a win in itself.
The riders organised themselves with the support of Harry and teammate Charlotte who both manned the feed. There was no plan other than to keep warm, stay safe and look out for one another. No one expected Christina to ride the race that she did! Just minutes into the race with Christina being quite active at the front she suddenly pulled clear of the bunch and continued to ride clear until she had a good gap of 2 minutes!

To do this in a race of this stature was amazing and she remained off the front for a solid one and a half hours. The coverage this gave for Christina and the team and it’s sponsors was fantastic with the race being aired live on Eurosport and GCN and regular updates on various social media platforms. As a team we know Christina’s strengths, we know how strong she is and we were so desperate for the chase not to happen! But inevitably it did and almost two hours into the horizontal rain, 40mph winds she was finally caught but it took some incredibly talented and experienced individuals to make that happen.
A ride that everyone was completely in awe of. The race eventually drew to a close after three and a half hours on a grippy 120km course. Gwenno finished 48th with Gemma, Christina and Lilie being pulled just before the final lap.
Maddie suffered an unfortunate crash just 7km into the race which ended her day early with a broken shifter. Hannah battled on for the first 50km but retired suffering from the elements.

Post race, Christina was questioned on whether she’d planned to ride as she did - “No, not planned even slightly! I didn’t recce the course as I was at work on Saturday, so I didn’t really know what was what. Just stayed at the front hoping to go with any breaks that went, but no one seemed to come with mine! Just pedalled as hard as I could for as long as they didn’t catch me!” A true show of determination, courage, mental and physical strength.

Overall a fantastic experience for the entire team, some frustrations, some lessons learnt, some better than hoped for individual results and another great opportunity to develop team cohesion. We’re very proud of and grateful for the hard work and attitude shown by riders and staff and a massive thank you to the other teams, volunteers, staff and all involved in enabling the National Champs to take place