Results

Nick Despres returned to his early season winning ways. He rounded off his two month racing rehabilitation with victory in the GIAAC’s Tower-to-tower race at L’Ancresse. While many of the 36 finishers took advantage of the fine weather to put in a last minute competitive workout ahead of this weekend’s inter-insular in Jersey, others had preferred to give their legs a rest in preparation for the cross-country Muratti.

At the other ‘Xtreme’, a group of Opta Fitness Challengers, with next month’s duathlon firmly in their sights, rode straight from the Velo Club’s 19-mile time trial to take part in the five-and-a-half mile point-to-point race. On the evidence 2 April – the date for the seventh Opta event – should see quite a tussle between Mark Naftel, Bob Duquemin and Tim Johns.

After the initial Pembroke to L’Ancresse Tower to Pembroke circuit had been completed, Mike Doyle led out the longer second stage to Rousse Tower, closely followed by Jonathan Robbins, Marcel Le Clerc and Despres, with Geoff King a little way behind. But by the return along L’Islet and Chouet, Despres was dominating proceedings. He completed the course in 32 minutes dead, 17 seconds ahead of Le Clerc who is fast regaining race fitness as well. Doyle put his disastrous Church-to-church fiasco behind him to post his best performance for several weeks, coming in third only two seconds behind.

Shanine Wray’s win in the women’s race was also a timely confidence booster, as she proved to have dispelled the dip in form of five or six weeks ago. Knocking nearly two minutes off her personal best time set in October’s running of the course, she finished in 40.33. Theresa Viveiros’ continued improvement showed again as she placed second, just ahead of Chris Greening.

Position	Name	Time
1	Nick Despres	32.00
2	Marcel Le Clerc	32.17
3	Mike Doyle	32.19
4	Geoff King	33.05
5	Alan Smith	33.28
6	Colin Ozanne	34.39
7	Tom Oliver	34.46
8	Robbie Froome	34.49
9	Gordon Mercier	35.09
10	Mark Naftel	35.31
11	Bob Duquemin	35.52
12	Tim Johns	36.00
13	Pete De Bertrand	36.45
14	Pat Down	37.25
15	Jason Woodhard	37.35
16	Bryan O’Meara	37.41
17	Dave Mahy	37.52
18	Martin Spratt	38.02
19	Paul Vaudin	38.17
20	Danny Blatchford	39.01
21	Pete Le Feuvre	39.30
22	Paul Rumens	39.31
23	Gary Vaudin	40.01
24	Kevin Lanyon	40.21
25	Kevin Le Noury	40.31
26	Shanine Wray (1^st Lady)	40.33
27	Paul Wood	40.46
28	Chris Tostevin-Hall	40.49
29	Robert Whalley	42.48
30	Alan Roger	43.00
31	Teresa Viveiros	43.57
32	Chris Greening	44.08
33	Terry Greening	45.47
34	Millie White	46.49
35	John Dedman	46.56
36	Caroline Corringham	60.39