Sunday morning, 27 August, saw the re-run of the VTTA National 25 mile championship, hosted by our own Group and organised by John Golder. Naturally, it measured up fully to the legendary NuGGeT promotion values: with the gentlest of zephyrs drifting from the north, balmy air and little traffic, the fabled but fickle E2/25 was in such a benign mood that East Anglia’s almost total dominance could not be attributed simply to home advantage.
We supplied both men’s and women’s champions in 87-year-old Peter Horsnell and much younger Jackie Field, with monster pluses of 22:19 and 19:05 respectively as well as the Group Team winners, Cambridge’s Andrew Grant backing up the two individual champions with a plus just one second behind Jackie’s. Andrew also led home Cambridge CC to the Club Team victory, backed by a brace of Dyasons – Chris and André, all three being EA members, five minutes clear of Team Bottrill’s Keith Dorling, Peter Lawrence and Anthony Birt, only the first and third of whom are East Anglians.
It was a day for East Anglian record breaking: Peter Horsnell’s 1:07:45 took 24 minutes (yes, you did read that correctly) off the previous age record; Jackie Field’s 54:50 trimmed nearly 4 minutes off hers; Andrew Grant’s 52:32 took nearly half a minute off the previous best for 64; the 54:46 from Chris Dyason (69) trimmed his, whilst the only reason Gavin Hinxman’s 49:08 – third fastest on the day – didn’t wipe every East Anglian record from 40-49 years from the record books was because he’s already done that this year with some even faster rides.
Fastest on the day was a hugely impressive 46:58 from 45-year-old Liam Maybank (Twickenham CC/L&HC) who set a new all-time, all-age National record, there being no faster VTTA performances of any age.
Provisional results from the VTTA National 25 are now available here, click the link below:
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.