Women’s Series Race 1: Nottingham
Date: 16/4/2006
Venue: Nottingham
Cat: Womens

Easter Sunday saw the first stage of the Women’s National Team Road Race series for 2006. Oxford, still the only university to participate in the series, was proud to enter a strong team comprising Rachel Hughes, Judith Kleine-Holthaus, Marcie Reinhart, Tamsyn Allen and Helen Haworth.

It was a big field and everyone was raring to go – the neutralized zone wasn’t particularly neutralized, and the pack rapidly picked up the pace. An 80km, 10 lap circuit, the course had just one small hill of note, and for the first five laps, the pack stayed mostly together, with just a few attempts to break happening at the front, all easily chased down. Part way through the fifth lap, misfortune struck the OUCC team as Helen hit the ground hard. Several women went down, in what was the only crash of the race. All other OUCC riders were otherwise unhurt, but Judith became separated from the main pack, leaving just Rachel in the lead group. Little else happened up front, with few attempts to break, although Rachel did her best to push the pace in the final laps.

Tamsyn, meanwhile, was leading the second largest group further down the field, and Marcie was having fun, battling stoically on on her own, midway between the two groups. Picking herself up, Helen managed to get back on to continue the race, eventually joining with Marcie to form a small chase group. Rachel put in a strong performance to finish in the bunch sprint with Judith coming in not long after. Marcie and Helen had fun working on their tactics to drop their co-riders just ahead of the finish, whilst Tamsyn also kept up the pace to the end, finishing near the front of her group. A great performance by everyone, particularly Tamsyn and Judith in their first ever road race. Congratulations!

Results