Guernsey Velo Club riders claim four national titles

Club president Gary Wallbridge was thrilled by the results achieved in Leicestershire, with the Sarnian riders having to come through regional qualifying before even being able to take part in the final where 180 riders were on the start sheet competing for the five age-group category championships for boys and girls as well as the overall team award.

Nine GVC Watts & Co Academy cyclists qualified from the district qualifier as either individual category winners or part of the winning team.

Of those, 12-year-old Louis Le Cheminant was the first to claim a national title with a brilliant time of 26min. 34sec. and Hannah Brehaut made it a double for Guernsey with the quickest time of all 12-year-olds – 26-22.

Sam Culverwell was a massive 34sec. ahead of his nearest rival in winning the 13-year-old boys' title and his time of 23-17 was just three seconds off the winning time of his GVC teammate Alex Van Katwyk in the 14-years age group.

'Once the results were counted up and read out it was a fantastic surprise to hear that Guernsey achieved overall third team, just seven seconds from first place,' Wallbridge said.

'This was particularly impressive as the riders making up the team, which is taken from the combined times of the quickest three riders, were young, being 14-year-old Alex, 13-year-old Sam and 15-year-old Jack Hoskins and they were so close to the first and second place teams consisting of mainly 16- and 15-year-olds.

'A tremendous result for Guernsey cycling, which would not have been possible without the hard work from the dedicated young cyclists and the unstinting time and fantastic support given by the coaches and the parent helpers the GVC is fortunate to have.

'A future team victory could well be possible next year.'

• Full report in today’s Guernsey Press.