Kennaugh and Trott sprint to road race titles
TEAM Sky’s Pete Kennaugh won a sprint duel with colleague and friend Ben Swift to claim his first British National Road Race Championships title yesterday in Abergavenny.
Kennaugh repeatedly failed to lose Swift during the last two laps but beat him to the line, with Orica GreenEdge’s Simon Yates third.
“On the last lap it was hard to race against such a good mate,” said the 25-year-old from the Isle of Man. “I’ve done so many training sprints with Swifty and he leaves me behind every time, but it was my day.”
Double Olympic track champion Laura Trott enhanced her burgeoning reputation on tarmac by pipping Lizzie Armitstead to the women’s road race title.
Trott trailed London 2012 silver medallist Armitstead by 15 seconds at one point during the 101km route but hauled her in on the last lap. The 22-year-old Wiggle-Honda rider compared it to winning her five track cycling world championships golds and said it made up for her disappointing show in Thursday’s time trial.
“I was so, so up for it,” Trott added. “I woke up and I was like ‘don’t even speak to me’. I was so in the zone.”