Viking Bikes Street Velodrome: Round 3 Worthing

For the 3^rd year in a row, the sunshine came out to celebrate the Worthing round of the Viking Bikes Street Velodrome series. Just a stone’s throw away from London, Round 3 took place in the bustling seaside town surrounded by arts and crafts, turquoise sea and hundreds of happy holiday weekenders.

Our job was to provide the entertainment and showcase what a breath-taking spectacle the Viking Bikes Street Velodrome Pro Riders can do and inspire passing people, both young and old, to take part in cycling.

All the riders taking part over the weekend took their job very seriously and put on an amazing show for out huge audience!

New for round 3 was London’s Any Bray, who was standing in for Dave Johnson. Andy was one of the fastest amateurs from the 2016 Street Velodrome series and this was his debut in the professional category. Other newcomers included Sophie Williams, a young national road racer for the Welsh National Squad, and Alice Staniford, Women’s Tour Series crit racer.

The Qualifiers

As usual, the most experience riders posted the fastest times – Patrick Robinson for the male and Jessica Watts for the female – but let us not forget this is a team event, and the action began to get interesting when times were added together and the seeing for the head-to-head racers were decided.

The home team, the South Coast Rollers, put their qualifying time down last. Despite being the fastest male, Patrick Robinson’s Team Wigan found themselves in the bottom of the team rankings due to newbie Sophie Williams finding her feet on the track.

The Head to Heads

In the head-to-heads, the mixed team results really played into exciting racing in the men’s competition from the outset. Normally, the fastest will race the slowest, until the finals are reached when all the fastest racers are still in the competition. This time, our fastest men were already racing each other and in quick but exciting races we saw Robinson knock-out Hemmings, MacLean knock-out Chubbs and Stockwell knock-out Bray.

In the women’s head-to-head, Price was taking no prisoners on her home turf and showed her power by catching newbie Alice Staniford within a lap and a half. Watts cruised to victory over fellow roadie Staniford also winning a catch!

After three-years of hosting the Street Velodrome events, the crowd at Worthing really know their teams and their athletes. The crowd amped up their noise and excitement as the final races of the day approached.

With both family and friends in the crowd, Glowinski hoped that she’d secure a win in front of a home crowd. Sadly, the pressure was too much and both herself and Watts crossed over the Johnson Line and were disqualified.

However, with both riders infringing to the same degree, it was decided that the first over the line would be announced as the winner – even deciding this was a close call but Glowinski managed to secure the finish by a mere 300ths of a second!

The Finals

Victory was stolen from Price and there were more disappointments when Hemmings crashed out, giving Stockwell his first Catch Trophy* points. The gathered crowd were even more hyped up for the men’s final. They appeared to be backing Robinson and his powerful Olympian thighs, but this was not enough to beat Robinson whose turns are the fastest and the smoothest of the bunch.

In the women’s medal races, Price saw herself comfortably take a bronze medal home and a Catch Trophy point in the minor finals against Bruce. Glowinski faced Watts, in a race that saw Watts take her second win of the season.

*A Catch Trophy point is awarded to a rider who enters the banking before their competitor leaves it. The race is then stopped early, announcing the catcher the winner. The team with the most Catch Trophy points at the end of the Series wins the Catch Trophy.

The Results

Pro Men

Gold – Patrick Robinson – Team Wigan

Silver – Craig Maclean MBE – South Coast Rollers

Bronze – John Stockwell – Suffolk Saints

Pro Women

Gold – Jessica Watts – Team Cornwall

Silver – Anna Glowinski – Team London

Bronze – Rowena Price – South Coast Rollers

Series Medal Table

1 - Team Wigan 3 / 1 / 0

2 - Team Cornwall 2 / 0 / 1