Great Britain’s Annie Last has expressed her delight at securing a top ten finish in yesterday’s Olympic mountain bike race at Hadleigh Farm in Essex, won by Julie Bresset of France.
Last, aged 21 and from Derbyshire, had set the early pace with the eventual winner on the first of the six circuits of the 4.km loop and was even in front on her own briefly after the 23-year-old Bresset clipped a barrier.
As the race progressed, Last began to lose touch with Bresset and would eventually slip out of contention for the medals, while 40-year-old Sabine Spitz of Germany and Canada’s Catherine Pendrel emerged as the two closest challengers to the Frenchwoman chasing gold.
Pendrel, however, would see her challenge fade with Georgia Gouls of the United States emerging from the chasing pack to join Spitz in the pursuit of Bresset, who was beginning to stretch out her advantage and extended it further on lap four when the German crashed, holding up the American behind her.
Bresset would eventually win by a little over a minute from Spitz in a time of 1:30:52, with Gould a further six seconds back in third place.
Last finished 2 minutes 55 seconds behind the winner, and throughout was cheered on by a capacity 20,000 crowd at the venue on the Thames Estuary.
"I'm really, really happy with my race," she reflected afterwards, quoted on the British Cycling website.
"I came here and wanted to get the best out of myself. That's what I did.
"I wanted to put myself in the race from the start, get a good start so I had a clean run on that first half lap.
"The last few laps I slipped back a bit, but I left everything out there, so I'm pleased.
"To be able to race at a home Olympics in front of a home crowd was incredible. The crowd the whole way round was unbelievable.
"You can just feel the atmosphere and feel them pushing you forward.
"I love what I'm doing at the minute and I still see myself being able to move forward and progress.
"This is what I'm going to stick at for the time being and keep at it."
Cycling infrastructure does not force drivers to break the law, drivers are the reason they break the law, no one else.
Ah but taking pictures of things to defy the man (avoid a fine) is righteous. Taking pictures of people to grass on them to the cops (perhaps...
But getting paid for it is the very definition of professional....
Never had a Shimano QR fail on me. They just work. And the top end ones look good too....
If you're only looking at the guy in front of you then you're going to crash whatever brakes you have, you need to look beyond them to anticipate...
As a woman, this works great for me! My chain broke once, and a kind guy stopped with a chain breaker and sorted it all out for me. We stopped at a...
Same. I also have gone through a bunch of their tyres, and only the extralight disappointed (torn sidewall) but the standards are fantastic....
thanks for the ideas....
Indeed - but it's no more inconsistent than our current road design - very often UK high streets are "for shopping" and also a busy through route....
If you ask the world's leading economic commentators how many people have been rescued from abject poverty by capitalism the average answer would...