A North Wales cyclist has told how he beat world class opposition to win a prestigious race in Denmark. Gareth McGuiness, of Llanrug, triumphed in the Gran Fondo (which means Big Ride in Italian) world championship in the 55 to 59 age category.
Held in Aalborg in the Scandinavian country, more than 200 of the best riders in the world competed over 95 miles. They had been were invited to enter if they were national champions in their country or qualified via a top result during a qualifying race.
Gareth, 55, a self-employed builder, had won the British Championship in Devon in August so was invited to race in this Danish showdown. He told North Wales Live: "With riders travelling from all over the world to win the very prestigious world champions rainbow jersey the start was fast and cagey.
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"Everyone was fighting to be at or near the front of the peloton, it wasn’t easy to keep position as riders were late braking and dive bombing into corners. Join the North Wales Live Whatsapp community now
"Twenty miles in I got caught out mid bunch on a climb and a group of 12 got a 40 second gap on the peloton. It took some time to get to the front where I made a decision to attack the bunch and bridge the 40 second gap to the leaders.
"This effort took me about 15 minutes all-out effort to make it over to the leaders which contained most of the race favourites including Mario Cipollini, a former senior world champ and with over 170 professional wins.
"This front group wasn’t fully committed and few miles later the peloton caught up and we were once again all back together. That solo effort burnt quite a bit of my energy stores.. for no gain really!" Get all the latest Gwynedd news by signing up to our newsletter.
Gareth added: "I recovered for a while in the peloton before attacking again as the race get to the final 25 miles. Many attacks followed from the strong riders with power still in their legs, I kept an eye on the strongest and favourites, the Italians and the Belgian riders were the strongest team, looking out for one and other.
"I had to be with one of them if I was to break away. With 10 miles to go a Belgian rider got a small gap of 20 seconds and I took my chance attacked over the top of the last climb and bridged over to him and we rode full gas until the last 2k where he then would not ride with me he just follow my rear wheel.
"It was now a game of poker who would sprint first, with the bunch closing in fast we approached the final 90 degree corner and then only 150 meters to the finish line after, i put myself over to the left hand side of the road and built my speed up slowly approaching the corner also trying to keep an eye on him and the fast moving peloton 10 seconds back.
"I knew I was going too fast for him to overtake me on the corner that was my plan as we approached it. As I straightened the bike up exiting the last corner I just gave it everything in the sprint.
"With the Belgian sprinting right on my shoulder he didn’t have the power to overtake and I won by a bike length, while the bunch was sprinting for 3rd place only 2 second back," said Gareth.
"The superstar cyclist Mario Cipollini taking the bronze medal. I almost couldn’t believe I had won the world championship road race, the rainbow jersey and the gold medal."
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