For James Phillips, though, the middle step on the podium at the inaugural British Cycling e-Racing Championships in March was greeted with satisfaction and no regrets.
“I was pretty happy. It was a surprise I wasn’t expecting,” he reflects.
Phillips was content because just four months earlier he had broken his leg and collarbone in a cyclo-cross race.
“I wasn’t on my bike until the end of December,” he reveals, “and it wasn’t until February that I sprinted without pain. I was racing on Zwift and getting beaten by people I would usually easily beat.
“I knew I had the potential to win but I wasn’t at 100 per cent. Weighing that up, and coming back from a bad injury, yeah, I was pretty happy.”
E-doping Over six months later, and Phillips was upgraded to first position. The first male winner of the British Cycling e-Racing National Championships, Cameron Jeffers, was found guilty by the national governing body of manipulating “pre-race data to gain an unfair advantage”.
This story is from the October 31, 2019 edition of CYCLING WEEKLY.
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This story is from the October 31, 2019 edition of CYCLING WEEKLY.
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