Weekly Women's Cycling News 13-19.05.2013

Tour Languedoc Roussillon cancellation - Wiggo rides like a girl - Neben injured - YOU can help make a women's cycling documentary - Inequality in BMX - Inequality in California - Afghan Women's Team organiser wins award - Rowsell to lead Manchester ride - Ipswich Johnson HealthTech round relocated to Redditch - Abbott back in the saddle - Bano wins Pakistan Nats - more news - Photo of the Week

Tour Languedoc Roussillon cancelled... then reinstated

"What a scandal!" tweeted Martine Bras

The biggest news of the week is the cancellation of the Tour Languedoc Roussillon - announced the day before the race was due to begin, when numerous teams were either already at the start town on en route, causing much anger among riders and fans alike. The precise reason for the cancellation hasn't yet been made clear with some claims that local police had stopped the event while others suggested financial problems. The latter seems most likely to be true as the race was reinstated a day later, reduced by one stage and shortened in length, after a new sponsor was reportedly found. Nevertheless, some teams - including Rabobank, who later listed "just a few reasons" for their decision - declined to go ahead as an act of protest.

Since the Languedoc-Roussillon organisers don't have the best reputation in cycling (having cancelled last year's edition a fortnight before the start, which also created problems for the teams), this raises an even more important and, for those organisers, extremely awkward question: why didn't they tell anyone that they were experiencing difficulties at an earlier date? Women's professional cycling teams operate on budgets that are mere pocket money when compared to those enjoyed by men's teams and the cost of getting a team, bikes, team officials, team car and so on to a race in the first place accounts for a large percentage of that; cancelling a race with so little notice could bring one of the poorer teams close to bankruptcy. If they have lost money, will they be recompensed? The organisers have no money, so it'd be down to the UCI. That, for many fans, equals "no they won't."

Finally, one of the most shocking aspects of the story less than a year after the world started to take notice of women's cycling at the Olympics, is that the news has been almost entirely overlooked by the media with most of the well-known cycling news websites ignoring it entirely.

The Unofficial Unsanctioned Women's UCI Cycling Blog has much more on what the news means for women's cycling.
More from Bridie O'Donnell.
(See also: Photo of the Week, at the bottom of this page)

Wiggo rides like a girl - he wishes!

Bradley Wiggins (no medieval honorifics on this blog, comrades) has kicked up a bit of a stink by explaining his loss of time at the Giro d'Italia thus: "I descended like bit of a girl really after the crash."

"Oh, but Wiggo won a Tour!"
some fans may argue. True.
However,so did Luperini.
Three times.

Throwaway comment? Perhaps, but a very stupid one all the same - especially since Wiggins put some of his own money towards backing British-registered pro women's team Wiggle-Honda, who've been doing more than their fair share of work to try to raise awareness of women's cycling. Let's hope team boss Rochelle Gilmore has a little word.

Or perhaps what Wiggo meant to say was "If I'd descended like a girl after the crash, I'd have still had a chance of winning." After all, if he really did ride like a girl he might actually have won the Giro, just like Fabiana Luperini won the Giro Donne five times.

The price of forgiveness? An admission that he's been a bit stupid and another few thousand for Wiggle-Honda ought to do the trick, I reckon.

Neben breaks hip and ribs
Current US National Time Trial Champion Amber Neben will be unable to defend her title on the 25th of May after a bad crash at the Tour of California left her with a fractured hip and cracked ribs. The 38-year-old was caught by a strong crosswind on a steep descent, putting her out of her line as she went into a corner. Braking the caused her to skid off the road where she collided with a cliff and hit the ground hard.

"Bummer. This hurts literally and figuratively. I'll recover, though... Believe it or not, there can be positive stuff that comes out of adversity," she told reporters afterwards.

Wanna see a women's cycling documentary?
Would you like to see a documentary film about women's cycling and the issues that surround it? Of course you would - and with a little help from your wallet, Kathryn Bertine can make it happen.

"HALF THE ROAD is a documentary film that explores the world of women’s professional cycling, focusing on both the love of sport and the pressing issues of inequality that modern-day female riders face in a male dominated sport. With footage from some of the world’s best international UCI races to interviews with Olympians, World Champions, rookies, coaches, managers, officials, doctors and family members, HALF THE ROAD offers a unique insight to the drive, dedication, and passion it takes for female cyclists to thrive.  Both on and off the bike, the voices and advocates of women’s pro cycling take their audience on a journey of enlightenment, depth, strength, love, humor and best of all, change & growth."

Any donations, in any currency, are welcomed; donations of $50 or greater will get the donor's name in the film credits.

Other reports
Cycling sexism: BMX bandits steal money from women
"At the 2013 BMX Nationals held in Brisbane last week, female competitors received half the prize money of male riders in the main event..." (Herald Sun, Australia)

Stevens, van Garderen call for equal footing for women’s racing
"The one-day-a-year spotlight the women racers get at the Amgen Tour of California is wonderful. Just not wonderful enough. Not hardly." (VeloNews)


Afghan National Women's Team organiser wins prestigious award
Shannon Galpin, founder of a charity that provides aid to women in war zones and one of the main figures behind the newly-organised Afghanistan Women's Cycling Team, has been awarded the National Geographic Humanitarian of the Year Award. More from the Huffington Post.


Joanna Rowsell to lead out Great Manchester Cycle
"The Olympic gold medal track cyclist will be leading out this year's Great Manchester Cycle on Sunday June 30." (Road.CC)

Ipswich round of Johnson HealthTech GP relocated to Redditch
More from Eastern Daily Times

Mara Abbott finds her way back to road
More from ESPN-W

Raheela Bano wins Pakistan Nationals
More from The News, Lahore

More News
UK
Pendleton hails rising popularity of women's cycling (GiveMeSport)
More Pendlenews (AllMediaScotland)
CTC: 'Why we launched an elite women's race team' (BikeBiz)
Sexism is endemic in cycling. Keep calm ladies and ride on (Daily Telegraph)

Worldwide
Pedal-pushers hail new Woodstock women's bike race (Recordonline.com, NY, USA)
Good performance from Cuba in PanAmerican women’s cycling championships (Granma, Cuba)

Photo of the Week

Riders stage a sit-down protest at the Tour Languedoc Roussillon
Tweeted by Lotto-Belisol Ladies

Weekly Women's Cycling News 06-12.05.2013

Lucy Garner wins at Chongming -  ITV4's Johnson HealthTech Tour coverage details - New  women's races in the UK - other news - more news to come

Lucy Garner wins Stage 1 at Chongming

Lucy Garner wins Stage 1, Tour of Chongming Island
(image credit: 1t4i)

Sprinter Kirsten Wild was widely expected to dominate on the pancake-flat parcours at Chongming Island until a crash at the Omloop van Borsele left her with a broken shoulder. Wild, who is women's cycling's answer to Mark Cavendish, leaves a gap in the peloton that is very hard to fill - certainly one that few people would have expected an eighteen-year-old in her first year with an Elite team to be able to slot into, even if that eighteen-year-old does have two Junior World Champonships to her name. Argos-Shimano manager Jorn Knops is apparently something of a visionary, then, because he set up the team to support Lucy Garner in the first stage. She repaid his faith with interest, delivering her first professional stage victory.

"The plan was to prepare the sprint for Lucy. In the beginning the team looked after Lucy to keep her toward the front and make sure that she wouldn’t waste any energy," Knops says. "She has already progressed a lot this season, not only physically but also tactically, and it’s remarkable that she could stay so calm in a chaotic sprint like this. I am very pleased with this win."

The stage went smoothly until the final 2km when a crash threw the peloton into a state of flux and prevented several teams from putting their own plans into action, but this in no way detracts from Garner's achievement - her main rival in the dash to the line was none other than Chloe Hosking of Hitec Products-UCK, a rider who has outsprinted Marianne Vos and Giorgia Bronzini in the past and won the General Classification at this race back in 2009. The next 69 riders over the line were awarded the same time (1h47'18") as Garner who, following bonification, has a 1" advantage in the General Classification.

Tour of Chongming Island Stage 1 results

ITV4 Johnson HealthTech Tour coverage details
Round 1 (Stoke-on-Trent) 22:00, Wednesday 22 May
Round 2 (Colchester) 22:00, Friday 30 May
Round 3 (Woking) 22:00, Wednesday 12 June
Round 4 (Aylsham) 22:00, Friday 14 June
Round 5 (Ipswich) 22:00, Monday 17 June

Coverage will be provided as part of ITV4's Pearl Izumi Tour coverage. In 2012, the Johnson HealthTech Tour only got a few minutes in each episode; we'll have to hope that following the enormous popularity of the Women's Road Race at the Olympics the producers will experiment with giving the women a little more airtime (though of course, any women's cycling on TV is a good thing). More details (including coverage of the men's races) here.

New Holme Valley Wheelers and London Velo women's races
"Following the success of the 2012 event Holme Valley Wheelers  will be organising both women’s and men’s events in 2013." More details here.

London Velo race (Essex) details here.

Other News
UK
Victoria Pendleton: women's cycling is big business since Olympics (Daily Telegraph)
Worldwide
Women's Woodstock Cycling Grand Prix to hit streets on Mother's Day (with video) (Daily Freeman, NY, USA)
Ocycler racing: 'Let's Race Bikes' initiative helps draw more women to PIR (Oregon Live, USA)
Award means cyclist Kaarle McCulloch is the best of our best (St. George and Sutherlandshire Leader, Australia)

Matrix-Prendas win Johnson HealthTech GP

Helen Wyman won Round 5, putting
herself into second place overall

That's all, folks: the 2012 Johnson HealthTech GP is over - but what a series it's been! The last round, which took place on the 14th of June in Stoke, was if anything the most hotly contested so far as the teams battled to try to grab last-minute success from Matrix-Prendas, who had pulled out all the stops and were giving it everything they've got to put on a good show and take a victory in front of the residents of their home city... and when Helen Wyman won the round, they did it with a 27 point advantage, helped by Jessie Walker's third place.

Node4-Giordana have been the only team to come close in this series. Lucy Garner, current Junior World Road Race Champion, won Round 4 and has been hot on the heels (and often ahead) of Matrix-Prendas' Annie Simpson all the way. Look Mum No Hands! and WindyMilla may have come fifth and sixth, but they too have provided many thrilling moments and plenty of top-notch action - the series would have been very much worse off without them.

Simpson's 72 points mean she wins overall, though organisers had to wait for her twelfth place finish to confirm that Wyman hadn't taken over. She also takes the intermediate sprint honours with a lead of just one point lead over Jo Tindley (VC St Raphael) in a competition that remained very far from decided until this final race. Annie's winning sprint in Oxford back on the 22nd of May is already being called one of the finest moments - if not the finest moment - of the entire HealthTech/Halfords Tour Series, and anyone who saw it will have no doubt whatsoever that she has many great years in cycling ahead of her.

Wyman, last year's winner and multiple National Cyclo Cross Champion, won the Sprints for the round. Known for the blistering bursts of acceleration she employs to gain early leads in the Dutch and Belgian cyclo cross races, where she competes against the best in the world, Helen attacked early on in the round and nobody was able to follow as she kept on building her lead; and by the time Laura Massey kicked of the bunch sprint the St. Albans-born 31-year-old star had already won. Her victory today earned her 72 points, which moved her up into second place overall.

Special mention goes to Team Mule Bar Girls, whose consistent good finishes earned them fourth place in the Teams classification. They are most definitely a team to watch, and if they keep improving as they have done so far this year Matrix-Prendas won't have it all their own way next year. The ultimate winner of the series isn't any one rider or team, however - it's women's cycling in Britain. In common with many countries, the sport receives little attention here compared to men's cycling which has grown in popularity over the last few years. To see such large crowds enjoying the non-stop and hard-fought action, made possible by the excellent work of the organisers and by Johnson HealthTech's sponsorship, bodes very well indeed for the future.

Highlights of the race will be broadcast by ITV4 at 22:00 on Friday the 15th of June, repeated at 09:40 the following day. 

Annie Simpson wins overall

Annie Simpson ‏@LittleSimo
We did it! Individual, sprints and team overall wins at @TourSeries!!! Amazing @onthedrops performance!! #winning



Harriet Owen ‏@harrieto93
Well, that's tour series over for the year, didn't quite get the time prize but congrats to @onthedrops who took the win! #solidracing


Top Ten Round 5
1)    Helen Wyman, Kona Factory Racing/Matrix-Prendas
2)    Laura Massey, Vivelo Bikes / Inverse / Cyclaim
3)    Jessie Walker, Matrix Fitness - Prendas
4)    Harriet Owen, Node4 - Giordana Racing
5)    Hannah Walker, Matrix Fitness - Prendas
6)    Lucy Garner, Node4 - Giordana Racing
7)    Jo Tindley, VC St Raphael
8)    Penny Rowson, Matrix Fitness - Prendas
9)    Ruth Winder, Team VanderKitten
10)    Alice Barnes, Twenty3c.co.uk - Orbea

Final Overall Top Ten
1)    Annie Simpson, Matrix Fitness - Prendas, 77pts
2)    Helen Wyman, Kona Factory Racing, 72pts
3)    Corrine Hall, Node4 - Giordana Racing, 62pts
4)    Penny Rowson, Matrix Fitness - Prendas, 58pts
5)    Laura Massey, Vivelo Bikes / Inverse / Cyclaim, 57pts
6)    Harriet Owen, Node4 - Giordana Racing, 54pts
7)    Jo Tindley, VC St Raphael, 50pts
8)    Hannah Walker, Matrix Fitness - Prendas, 45pts
9)    Alice Barnes, Twenty3c.co.uk - Orbea, 31pts
10)    Lydia Boylan, Look Mum No Hands!, 28pts

Teams Overall
1)    Matrix Fitness - Prendas, 202pts
2)    Node4 - Giordana Racing, 175pts
3)    VC St Raphael, 105pts
4)    Mule Bar Girls, 82pts
5)    Look Mum No Hands!, 45pts
6)    WyndyMilla UK Youth, 7pts

Sprints Overall
1)    Annie Simpson, Matrix Fitness - Prendas, 25pts
2)    Jo Tindley, VC St Raphael, 24pts
3)    Hannah Walker, Matrix Fitness - Prendas, 19pts 

Lucy Garner wins Johnson HealthTech GP Round 4

Lucy Garner

Lucy Garner (Node4-Giordana), the current Junior Road Race World Champion, won the penultimate round of the 2012 Johnson HealthTech GP in Woking on Tuesday evening after beating Vanderkitten's Ruth Winder to the finish line - her second victory on the tight Woking city centre criterium course in two years, the slight uphill section leading to the finish line being prime Garner territory.

Hannah Barnes (Ibis Cycles) tried several times to break away, but Penny Rowson (Matrix-Prendas) wasn't letting her go anywhere and kept every move covered. Meanwhile, her team mate Annie Simpson was attempting to launch her own break but she too got nowhere this time. Finally, near the end of the race, a break stuck: Garner got away with Winder and Rowson immediately responding and staying with her into the sprint finish.

Third place for Rowson keeps Matrix-Prendas in the overall lead, while Simpson retains both the General Classification leadership.

Matrix - Prendas ‏@onthedrops
That was some ride by the team tonight. Seriously on another level. Congrats to all of the team and guest stars @lutonian and @geezermate

Ruth Winder (Team VanderKitten) won the Intermediate Sprints classification for the round, but beating Simpson in this classification is now impossible for anybody except Jo Tindley (VC St Raphael): there are ten sprint points on offer in each round, Tindley (16pts) will need to win both sprints or win one and come second in the other in the next round to surpass Simpson's current eight-point lead.

Lydia Boylan

One of the most aggressive rounds of the Series so far, the race claimed victims: Tindley crashed, causing Node4-Girodana's Harriet Owen to collide with her; but both women were unhurt (judging by how soon after the race they were updating their Twitter feeds!) and took 15th and 16th places respectively. Lydia Boylan (Look Mum No Hands!) was not so fortunate - her front wheel touched the rear wheel of the bike in front of her and she was sent over the handlebars for a rough landing on the road. Thankfully, she escaped serious injury but will be bruised and feeling sore this morning.

Lydia ‏@LyD_ers
@JHTUK Thank you! First big race crash :( All part of the sport! I'll be back soon!

With 20 points still available to the winner of the final round (19pts for second place and so on down to 1pt for 20th) the overall win remains open and the final round, due to take place in Matrix-Prendas' hometown Stoke-on-Trent on Thursday 14th of June, is guaranteed to be a hard-fought battle.

Photos: Ruth Winder in action (Richard Bennett) - full set (Velo UK) - Matrix-Prendas post-race (Stuart MacLean)


Highlights of the race on ITV4 tonight at 20:00, repeated Thursday 10:45 (all the cycling on British TV this week)

Annie Simpson retains her lead overall and
in the Intermediate Sprints classification

Top Ten Round 4
1) Lucy Garner, Node4 - Giordana Racing 
2) Ruth Winder, Team VanderKitten 
3) Penny Rowson, Matrix Fitness - Prendas 
4) Amy Roberts, Scott Contessa Epic 
5) Eileen Roe, Team Ibis Cycles 
6) Hannah Walker, Matrix Fitness - Prendas 
7) Annie Simpson, Matrix Fitness - Prendas 
8) Helen Wyman, Kona Factory Racing 
9) Corrine Hall, Node4 - Giordana Racing 
10) Louise Mahe, Mule Bar Girls

Overall after Round 4
1) Annie Simpson, Matrix Fitness - Prendas, 68pts 
2) Corrine Hall, Node4 - Giordana Racing, 56pts 
3) Helen Wyman, Kona Factory Racing, 52pts 
4) Penny Rowson, Matrix Fitness - Prendas, 45pts 
5) Laura Massey, Vivelo Bikes / Inverse / Cyclaim, 38pts 
6) Louise Mahe, Mule Bar Girls, 38pts 
7) Harriet Owen, Node4 - Giordana Racing, 37pts 
8) Hannah Barnes, Team Ibis Cycles, 37pts 
9) Jo Tindley, VC St Raphael, 36pts 
10) Hannah Walker, Matrix Fitness - Prendas, 29pts

Teams after Round 4
1) Matrix Fitness - Prendas, 155pts 
2) Node4 - Giordana Racing, 145pts 
3) VC St Raphael, 76pts 
4) Mule Bar Girls, 73pts 
5) WyndyMilla UK Youth, 7pts

Sprint standings after Round 4
1) Annie Simpson, Matrix Fitness - Prendas, 24pts 
2) Jo Tindley, VC St Raphael, 16pts 
3) Hannah Walker, Matrix Fitness - Prendas, 13pts 
4) Ruth Winder, Team VanderKitten, 12pts 
5) Hannah Barnes, Team Ibis Cycles, 12pts 
6) Lucy Garner, Node4 - Giordana Racing, 8pts 
7) Harriet Owen, Node4 - Giordana Racing, 8pts 
8) Helen Wyman, Kona Factory Racing, 5pts 
9) Eileen Roe, Team Ibis Cycles, 3pts 
10) Corrine Hall, Node4 - Giordana Racing, 3pts


Velocite UK ‏@Velocite_Bikes
Big congrats to @onthedrops on a great team ride last night and to @penny_rowson for a strong third place. Top work ladies!

Johnson HealthTech GP, Colchester

Eileen Roe

With the heavy rain and strong winds that battered the start of the race and a puncture that ruined her chances of a good finish, poor Hannah Barnes (Team Ibis Cycles) probably wished she hadn't bothered showing up at Colchester for Round 3 of what is fast becoming Britain's premier women's cycling series (and with the close, fast criterium format picking up ever-increasing numbers of fans over the Channel, it looks due to take its place among the great women's races of Europe at some point in the near future). However, with Matrix Fitness-Prendas' Annie Simpson now keeping one eye firmly on preserving her overall lead rather than grabbing round winner glory, Barnes' misfortune had the effect of opening up the race to some of the not so well-known riders.

Among them was Eileen Roe, who rode for the very first time in the series last week at the Peterborough round - the 22-year-old Scot showed older and more experienced riders a thing or two about bike handling in the treacherous conditions. then made full use of improving weather towards the end of the race by redoubling her efforts and launching a superb sprint to the line. All the same, her triumph was as much of a surprise to her as anyone else: "Hannah [Barnes] and I were racing for four hours in Holland yesterday in the rain," she said right after the race. "We drove back last night, got to bed at two in the morning so I wasn’t expecting anything special tonight. But you always ride better with a race in your legs and I was more energized but I do need my bed now!"

Annie Simpson

Simpson retains her lead in both the overall and sprints classifications but sounded less than jubilant, evidently unhappy to have done so partially as a result of her main rival's misfortune. "It was really hard tonight especially with the weather," she said. "I just tried to keep it really fast and get the bunch down. Unfortunately Hannah Barnes went out, who is my main rival, so that helped me, but it was a really great night and it was great to see Eileen win."

She's eagerly anticipating the rest of the series, though: "Woking next week is a really good course, it’s got a lot of corners like Oxford which I won so I’d like to do well there. Stoke-on-Trent is where our sponsors Matrix Fitness are from so we want to perform there for them. That is like our home round and our team has won the past two rounds there so we feel we need to keep that up. I am really looking forward to it though." Oxford was one of the tightest and most exciting races to have taken place in Britain this season, so with promises like those the fans are going to be looking forward to the coming rounds every bit as much as Simpson. With some good finishes by her team mates, Matrix-Prendas also stay at the top of the teams classification.

Hannah Barnes ‏@bannahharnesShame about my puncture in the @TourSeries but still a good night with a team win :)

Round 3 Colchester
1. Eileen Roe (Ibis Cycles)
2. Ruth Winder (Vanderkitten)
3. Alice Barnes (Twenty3c.co.uk-Orbea)
4. Laura Massey (Vivelo Bikes/Inverse Cyclaim RT)
5. Corrine Hall (Node 4 Giordana)
6. Annie Simpson (Matrix-Prendas)
7. Hannah Walker (Matrix-Prendas)
8. Helen Wyman (Kona/Matrix-Prendas)
9. Jo Tindley (VC St Raphael)
10. Natalie Creswick (Mule Bar Girls)

Overall Top Ten (after Round 3)
1. Annie Simpson (Matrix-Prendas) 54pts
2. Corrine Hall (Node 4 Giordana) 44pts 
3. Helen Wyman (Kona/Matrix-Prendas) 39pts
4. Hannah Barnes  (Ibis Cycles)  37pts
5. Harriet Owen (Node 4 Giordana) 32pts
6. Jo Tindley (VC St Raphael) 30pts
7. Laura Massey (Vivelo Bikes/Inverse Cyclaim RT) 28pts
8. Lydia Boylan (Look Mum No Hands!) 28pts
9. Louise Mahe (Mule Bar Girls) 27pts
10. Penny Rowson (Matrix-Prendas) 27pts

Sprint Standings (after Round 3)
1. Annie Simpson (Matrix-Prendas) 24pts
2. Jo Tindley (VC St Raphael) 13pts
3. Hannah Barnes (Ibis Cycles) 12pts
4. Harriet Owen (Node 4 Giordana) 8pts
5. Lucy Garner (Node 4 Giordana) 5pts
6. Hannah Walker (Matrix-Prendas) 5pts
7. Helen Wyman (Kona/Matrix-Prendas) 5pts
8. Corrine Hall (Node 4 Giordana) 3pts
9. Lydia Boylan (Look Mum No Hands!) 2pts
10. Jo McRae (Look Mum No Hands!) 2pts

Teams (after Round 3)
1. Matrix Fitness-Prendas, 108pts
2. Node4-Giordana, 108pts
3. VC St Raphael, 58pts
4. Mule Bar Girls, 50pts
5. Look Mum No Hands!, 45pts
6. WyndyMilla UK Youth, 6pts

Harriet Owen wins Johnson HealthTech Round 2

Harriet Owen

Node4-Giordana's Harriet Owen fought hard on a challenging Peterbourough parcours to win Round 2 of the Johnson HealthTech GP last night after getting away early in a three-rider break and then beating Oxford winner Annie Simpson (Matrix-Prendas) to the line.

"I just went eyeballs out and hoped that someone would come with me, and it stuck," the 19-year-old explained after the race. "We all worked really well together so got quite a good lead. I knew I felt quite good, but I knew Hannah Barnes had a good sprint and Annie would go for a long one as well, so I had to chance it and go for a long one as if I could get the gap I’d be able to hold it, and it paid off."

"With a big lead on the peloton, it was important for me just to focus on the finish and retaining my overall lead," Simpson said. "We’d already taken the sprint points on the night, and after the last one we’d got 50 seconds, so it was all focus on crossing the line ahead of Hannah Barnes." She now has sixteen points in the Sprints competition, Owen has eight for second place and Barnes seven.

Annie Simpson

Hannah Barnes arrived in third place and is now only two points behind Simpson in the series leadership. Node4 team mates Lucy Garner and Corrine Hall are third and fourth while 2011 overall champion Helen Wyman (Kona Factory Racing, guest-riding for Matrix-Prendas), who is today celebrating her wedding anniversary with directeur sportif Stef Wyman, is in fifth place. With Garner finishing fourth yesterday and Hall tenth, the squad takes over leadership of the team rankings with an advantage of sixteen points; but with three rounds to go (Colchester 07.06, Woking 12.06, Stoke-on-Trent 12.06), the eventual outcome of what has become the premier women's racing series in the United Kingdom is far from decided.

Matrix-Prendas' Sarah Reynolds crashed badly and was rushed to hospital, where it was initially feared she may have suffered serious injury. After being kept in overnight, tests revealed bruising to her lungs and kidney and some damage - but not, as first thought, a rupture - to her spleen. She thanked fans for their messages on Twitter.

Owen was interviewed by a BBC East news crew minutes after her victory - evidence that fast, exciting city centre criterium races running alongside established men's events such as the Halfords Tour Series are successful in bringing women's competitive cycling to a wider audience.

Short highlights of the race will be shown as part of ITV4's Halfords Series coverage tonight (30th May) at 8pm, repeated tomorrow morning at 08:30.

Best wishes for a recovery that's as
fast as you are, Sarah Reynolds

Round 2 Top Ten 

1. Harriet Own, Node4 - Giordana Racing
2. Annie Simpson, Matrix Fitness - Prendas
3. Hannah Barnes, Team Ibis Cycles
4. Lucy Garner, Node4 - Giordana Racing
5. Amy Roberts, Scott Contessa Epic
6. Lydia Boylan, Look Mum No Hands!
7. Louise Mahe, Mule Bar Girls
8. Emily Kay, Scott Contessa Epic
9. Helen Wyman, Kona Factory Racing
10. Corrine Hall, Node4 - Giordana Racing

Overall Top Ten
1. Annie Simpson, Matrix Fitness - Prendas, 39pts
2. Hannah Barnes, Team Ibis Cycles, 37pts
3. Lucy Garner, Node4 - Giordana Racing, 32pts
4. Corrine Hall, Node4 - Giordana Racing, 28pts
5. Helen Wyman, Kona Factory Racing, 26pts
6. Harriet Owen, Node4 - Giordana, 25pts
7. Lydia Boylan, Look Mum No Hands, 25pts
8. Amy Roberts, Scott Contessa Epic, 22pts
9. Jo Tindley, VC St Raphael, 18pts
10. Louise Mahe, Mule Bar Girls, 18pts

Pics of the day

A superb photoset of Matrix-Prendas at the Oxford Johnson HealthTech GP

Annie Simpson reports from Oxford

"[The] team plan was to make it hard and aggressive, which suited me fine as I find it hard to ride any other way."

Read Annie's full Oxford Johnson HealthTech GP report here.