Sheffield City Chase

The Sheffield City Chase was the final round of the Nopesport Urban League, which consisted of the 10 major city races held in Great Britain this year and had attracted a very high standard of entry with Graham Gristwood, Oly Johnston, Rachel Elder and Jenny Johnston among the 220 competitors. Five Reivers travelled down to the event with Douglas Henderson, Kirstin and Karen Maxwell all in contention for podium league places.

The first race was held mostly in a tricky residential area with lots of dead ends before finishing in the city centre. Kirstin had a good clean run to 8th place in the Women’s Open, 2.45 ahead of Ian on the same course who had trouble reading the red overprint against the green background. Karen finished 6th on the Junior Women’s course unable to keep up with some of the older girls (under 18s) but more than 4 minutes ahead of both Douglas and Eileen who both made costly mistakes.

The second race featured a chasing start and was through the city centre, which was very tricky with multiple levels, underpasses and uncrossable areas. Douglas had a much better run just failing to catch Karen who got the better of some of her older rivals to take 3rd place in both the race and event with Eileen also greatly improving to finish 4th Veteran Women. On the longer B course Ian also had better run making up 11 places in the Veteran Men’s class and overtaking Kirstin who made a mistake on the multiple levels.

Results:

Karen, 3rd Junior Women

Kirstin, 10th Women’s Open

Eileen, 6th Veteran Women

Ian, 14th Veteran Men

Douglas 15th Super Veteran Men.