Another Silver makes three at UCI Para-Cycling Road World Championships

Another Silver makes three at UCI Para-Cycling Road World Championships

3 August 2015, 12:20PM
Paralympics New Zealand (PNZ)

The third day of the UCI Para-Cycling Road World Championships in Switzerland saw another close fought battle as the tandem pairing of New Zealander’s Emma Foy and Laura Thompson won Silver in the Women’s B Road Race.

After 77.5km this race as if a replica of the Time Trial on Day 1 of the World Championships, came down to a mere 11 seconds between Gold and Silver.  Gold being won by the Polish tandem (Podkoscielna and Wnuczek) and the Bronze medal went to the Dutch tandem (Van Deudekom and Van Dijk).  This was a great result and improvement for Foy and Thompson who placed 5th in the Road Race at last year’s World Championships.

Emma Foy  and Laura Thompson summed up the race and said, “It was awesome to finish off our Road World Championships campaign with a second Silver medal in the road race! It was a very hilly course and well deserved win for the Polish. We are looking forward to cheering on our team mate Tim Williams tomorrow before the journey home begins."

Jono Hailstone (Head Performance Coach – Para-Cycling) said, "Day three saw some fantastic racing for the New Zealand Team with a mixed bag of weather on a very hilly and technical course.  Fraser was first up for the Team racing in the Men’s C3 56km Road Race in wet conditions. Fraser executed his race plan to the letter and had a solo lead of almost 30 seconds early in the race. He was chased down by the peloton, and almost immediately the Japanese rider attacked and quickly built up a significant lead which he maintained through to the finish, leaving the peloton to race for 2nd place. Fraser finished in 11th place, just 5 seconds off the main group.”

He continued, “Next saw Stephen Hills compete in the Men’s T2 28km Road Race. Stephen had a great race also on testing wet roads and this gave Stephen the opportunity to demonstrate his superior trike handling skills. An early breakaway of three leaders formed, never to be seen again, Stephen rolled in for a respectable 6th place.”


Emma Foy and Laura Thompson, medal ceremony. Photo and caption courtesy of PNZ.

Of the Silver medal winning race Hailstone said, “The final event for the New Zealand Team was the Women’s B Road Race where Emma and Laura executed an extremely credible race over a very hilly 77.5km course. Emma and Laura used their strength and high level of physical conditioning to build up an early lead, along with the reigning world champion Polish tandem, which they maintained for the rest of the race. The girls were unable to follow a strong attack from the Polish pairing on the final climb, which left them with a 20 second deficit to close down over the final 5km. They managed to reduce the gap to 10 seconds on the descent coming into the finishing track, but ran out of road to close down the remainder, leaving them with a very respectable result of second place by only 11 seconds, almost 6 minutes ahead of the third place tandem.”

The New Zealand Para-Cycling team have now won a total of three Silver medals at this event.  The final day of racing will see Tim Williams in action in the Men’s H1 Road Race at 6.00pm NZT.

For results, visit www.paralympics.org.nz

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