Two titles, one household: Megan Barker and Matt Bostock, partners and Rapha Cycling Club teammates, won the women’s and men’s circuit championships in Aberystwyth — and both defending champions came undone.
The championships end on Sunday with their hardest test, on the Aberystwyth roads that crowned Samuel Watson and Millie Couzens a year ago. Couzens returns to defend; the men’s champion does not, leaving his title open.
Zoe Bäckstedt defends her elite women’s title at the head of an all-Welsh podium, and Ethan Hayter wins a fourth elite men’s national time-trial title, as the National Road Championships open at Lampeter. In the under-23 races, Ben Wiggins ends two years as runner-up to win the men’s time trial and Erin Boothman wins the women’s by almost two minutes — with a time that would have medalled among the elites.
On Friday evening the national criterium titles are settled on Aberystwyth’s technical seafront circuit—Matt Bostock the form man in the open race, Kate Richardson defending in the women’s.