UCI Track Champions League
The packed crowd at the Velodrome National in France were treated to an exhilarating start to the medal events, with a Women’s Scratch race exploding into action with just six laps to go.
Anna Morris reeled a late move by Baleisyte in and looked to have the win in the bag as the final lap began, but Archibald timed her move to perfection, overtaking Morris down the home straight – to kick start her title defence in style and take maximum points.
There was a shock in the Women’s Elimination as one of Archibald’s biggest rivals, Anita Stenberg, was knocked out relatively early, becoming the tenth rider to exit the race. Archibald took full advantage of her rival’s elimination to go on to win, doubling up on race victories in Round 1 and bagging the full 40 points available.
Fellow Scot Neah Evans was in fine form in the elimination race claiming an excellent third place, to see her sit fifth in the overall standings.
On her brace of wins in Paris, Archibald said:
“I’m really happy, it was a night of quite scrappy racing from me. It’s garnered the result but there’s lots that I want to finesse – I want to stay on the top step but maybe with some nicer tactics! You have to race with confidence, the only way to get the best result is with a confident mindset. It’s hard to convince yourself of that but now I can go into the next round with genuine confidence.”
Chatelherault
The Chatelherault round of the HUPcc Scottish Cyclocross Series was victim to Storm Bert, but a new date of Sunday 23rd February – which will be the new series finale.
More on this to come soon.
Cyclocross
Cameron Mason (Cyclocross Reds) was back in action at the double header of racing in Belgium. Saturday saw a strong performance with an eighth-place finish at the Urban Cross in Kortrijk – which forms part of the Exact Cross series.
Sunday saw the first World Cup round of 2024 in Antwerp, with the wind and sand not playing to Mason’s strengths. After a good start the Linlithgow native finished in 25th place. With a trip to Dublin – which has been a happy-hunting ground for the Scotsman – to come next Sunday, he’ll look to impress in the Irish capital.
Sticking with Cyclocross, Arabella Blackburn (Trinity) made a trip to Grand Est, with the Coupe de France double header in Troyes.
The Aberdeenshire junior produced an excellent performance on Saturday with a seventh-place finish at the UCI event, before following that up with a solid 13th place finish on Sunday.
Four days of Geneva
Finishing off our mini-European Tour of racing this weekend was the 4 jours de Genève in Switzerland.
Jenny Holl and partner Clemence Chereau claimed second place overall in the four-day event at the Geneva Velodrome.
Upcoming Events
If you’ve got the bug for racing, there’s still plenty to get stuck into with the Scottish Track Championships on 13-15th December still open for entries.
See what’s on here.