BBA National Road Race Championships 2020 Round Up
Tyler Smith in Action
IslandStats.com
The Bermuda Bicycle Association held the 2020 Road Race National Championship race in St. George’s with Tyler Smith and Rose-Anna Hoey emerging as the Champions of the Open Men and Open Women categories while Nicholas Narraway and Liana Medeiros took the Junior Men and Women categories, respectively. Click Here to see Pictures of National Road Race Championships 2020
Smith earned his first National Championship title in a masterful bit of teamwork with Kaden Hopkins of Winners Edge. The two, along with Conor White (Hamilton United), Dominique Mayho, and Jamie Cousins (both VT Construction) split the race early with a blistering pace.
From the group of five Smith and Cousins made a further break, leaving White without a teammate and forced to do the majority of the chasing. When Cousins showed signs of fatigue in the 60-mile race Smith continued his pace with White still chasing with Mayho and Hopkins. With one 10 mile lap left to go the difference was just 45 seconds between the solo leader and the chasing three but Smith extended his lead to finish with a time of 2:25:17.907. In the sprint for second Hopkins was second in 2:27:27.852 and White was third with a time of 2:27:28.063.
The Women’s race had a similar look to it as Rowse-Anna Hoey made a solo break on the third of four laps and held off the peloton for an impressive solo win clocking 1:54:31.374.
The ensuing sprint saw Jamie-Lee Wright take second overall with a time of 1:54:46.473, while the defending champion Caitlin Conyers claiming the third step of the podium clocking 1:54:47.007.
The Junior Women raced 30 miles and Medeiros’ win gave her her second National Title in as many weeks with a time of 1:30:53.794. Sisters Jasmin and Zoe Hasselkuss finished second and third with times of 1:30:53.794 and 1:33:22.601.
In one of the most anticipated events of the day, Nic Narraway scooped the Junior Men title from Liam Flannery in a frantic sprint to the line.
The young men’s competition split early with favorites Narraway, Flannery, Alexander Miller, and Nick Pilgrim jumping out of the peloton and setting a pace too high for any chasers to match. The foursome continued for several laps until Pilgrim faded, leaving Narraway and his Winners Edge teammate Miller with a strategic edge over Flannery (Team Gnosis).
A hesitation by Flannery to chase Miller came back to haunt him as he then had to work harder than he wished on the last lap rather than saving his legs for the inevitable sprint.
Narraway’s margin of victory 1:41:44.292 was a mere .024 of a second but enough to grab the title for 2020.
