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Super win for Shand the elder

16/ 8/2008

WITH club time trialing having ground to a halt this week West Pennine Road Club’s focus was on events in Belgium, Norway and the picturesque Malvern Hills.

It was in and around that characteristic English landscape that veteran Kev Shand scored his best result so far this season.

He took first place in the three-stage, two-day Ernie Clements Memorial road race which was just reward for the Pennine rider’s aggressive style in a season that has not been completely clear of knee problems.

Happily there was no sign of that as the 58-year old lined up for Saturday morning’s 1.34-mile prologue time trial at Welland, in the shadow of the Malverns.

Describing his effort as ‘getting it all wrong’ he finished in 15th spot, some 33 seconds down on the morning’s winner, Ferryhill Wheeler’s Steve Davies.

Hoping to regain some time Shand repeatedly attacked only to be dragged back by a peloton content to let the stage be decided by a bunch sprint won by the prologue winner. Davies, last year’s overall winner, was definitely a man to watch.

Sunday’s 48-mile stage was obviously going to be the decisive one, as the Ferryhill Wheeler must have thought.

Shand, however had other plans. A good night’s rest, plus lots of pasta fuelled the Pennine man for a big push for victory.

He’d had the same aspirations a good number of times this season only to see them left in tatters.

This time it worked. An early attack on a steep climb saw Shand open a gap that stretched enough to give him the hope that, almost unbelievably, he would go to the finish.

For 39 agonising miles he maintained a lead, sometimes within sight of the bunch, and it was a lead the veteran held right to the chequered flag.

He crossed the line with only 40 seconds in hand, but it was enough for him to be crowned overall winner.

Second place went to Solihull’s Ian Thomas, while a disappointed Davies trailed at third spot.

There must be something in the Shand family genes that prompted an upsurge in form last week.

Daniel, in Belgium, could not boast a first place, but he could claim the next best as he finished second in a 120km race at Grobbendonk, 23 km east of Antwerp.

In a hard fought tussle which saw 85 starters and only 40 finishers the De Sprinter Malderen rider ended the race just half a wheel down on the winner after rapidly chasing him down with a seven-man group.

The lucky winner was Guy Van Broehoven from the Poorten Feryn team.

Friday saw Shand back in the fray in multi-lap race at Zelzate, just north of Ghent, where he picked up an 11th spot.

Providing most of the firepower in a chasing group he was fractionally edged out of taking the final sprint for the line. Already home and dry was race winner Jurgen Diependaele of the Wielerteam Decock Capino team.

Sunday featured a hard race for the Pennine ‘old boy’ when he travelled to Liege for an event over a different sort of country to the almost pan flat Flanders landscape he is familiar with.

For around two hours he worked away in a six-man break with a very possible win on the cards.

That was until his efforts of earlier in the week began to take toll and, almost spent, he fell out of the back door of the group to finish in 41st spot.

Attracted by the wooded slopes of the Ardennes, south of Liege, Shand planned a few days hill training for the rest of the week in that French-speaking region of the country.

Hilly as the Ardennes are they scarcely rival the mountains of southern Norway where once again West Pennine’s John Hey, pictured right, tested himself in the annual Norseman Xtreme triathlon.

In his fifth appearance in the race, Hey was under no illusion that the familiarity would make it any easier.

Yes, it was warmer than last year, but there was still a total of 226km to be covered.

The race started in the Hardengerfjord, just east of Bergen, where a wet suited Hey finished a 3.8 km swim in a time of 1 hour 38 minutes 40 seconds.

The swim phase was won in a time of 1-07.37 by overall triathlon winner Oyvind Johannessen from Oslo.

Next came the 180km bike section which had to be tackled over far from easy roads from Eldjord to Tessungdalen.

Hey, perhaps more at home on the bike and wearing West Pennne colours, finished in 6-39.34 against the winning time, again by Johannessen, of 5-26-18.

It should be mentioned that the Norwegian was competing in the age 25 class against the 40 plus category of the West Pennine veteran.

The final gruelling full marathon distance of 42.2km started in Austbygde and wound its way in the final 25km to the top of the 1,850 metres Gaustatoppen mountain.

At this stage of the race any resemblance to a conventional flat road marathon was faintly coincidental, with every athlete compelled to have a support crew in fairly close attendance.

Hey arrived at the top with a time of 5-29.12 against the remarkable 4-13.30 of the fastest runner. Johannessen sagged on this stage to finish in 4-30.55, but it was enough to see him emerge as overall winner in a total time – including transitions, of 11-08.10.

The West Pennine man’s total was 14 hours 28 minutes 5 seconds which gave him 47th place against his 44th spot in 2007.

One hundred and fifty-eight courageous athletes finished this extremely testing event.