Well, it’s all hotting up in the competition, even if the weather is starting to cool down again. 33 Sotonians tested their late summer legs against Furzedown Hill.
In the women’s competition, Sophie Sellars made it two wins in a row, but this time with a narrow gap over Izzy Hall. Jen Dawson took the third place on the podium. Sophie and Jen have the top two places in the whole-season competition, with just two rounds to go. But they are being chased hard by Emma Harrison and Debbie Hallett, neither of whom have played their joker yet.
In the U16 female competition, Emma Harrison and Izzy Hall continue their tussles, reversing last month’s finishing order. Izzy took the top step this month, but lies in second overall. This one may be decided by consistency: can they both manage to complete the final two rounds?
In the men’s competition, Will Weynberg made only his second entry into the competition, but also recorded his second win. 5 seconds off the KoM time, Will beat Andy Gardiner into second place by 2 seconds. Joey Wynne achieved his best finish of the competition, to take third place. Andy now has a commanding competition lead, but there’s strong competition for second and third place. Paul Macken and Aaron Barry are the current occupants, but they’re vulnerable to a joker played by any of Jeremy Hubbard, George Connell and a bunch of others.
It’s a similar story in the men’s U16 competition. Niclas Olley took revenge over George Connell, taking first place this month. He’s breathing hard down George’s neck in the overall; once again, a joker could make all the difference.
Full results are viewable here.
September’s segment
This month, the segment is a little longer: a 4 km segment ra3 that will bring back some happy memories for those of us who raced the Downton two day race. Note that this has been changed from the previous segment so those of you who had planned to play your joker this month will now have to re-consider. To allow time for this, we’ve extended the deadline; if you let us know by Friday 8 September 1800 on info@sotonia.co.uk then we’ll count your joker for September. If you have already played your joker, please let us know if you would still like to use it.
Tim