Courteousy of British Cycling and Larry Hickmott

PROLOGUE

Newton Wins Prologue in French Stage Race

Recycling.co.uk rider Chris Newton today showed he has recovered from the illness that has blighted his recent races when he won the Prologue for the French stage race, Boucles de la Mayenne. The Commonwealth Games champion showed great form to blitz the field and will take the Yellow jersey into the next stage for this four day race.

After recent results going against him, Chris explained that he hadn't expected to win the prologue but some work with a physio had paid off and that now he has yellow, he and the five man team do expect to try and defend it. In the race for the the British team are Evan Oliphant, Dale Appleby, Rob Partridge, RAS winner Kristain House and Chris Newton.

1. NEWTON, Chris; (RCY GBR E1) 0h 8mn 14sec
2. VEELERS, Tom RB3 (NED E1) 0h 8mn 17sec
3. EICHLER, Markus (TRS GER E1) 0h 8mn 17sec

12. DAYUS, Johnathan (UCN GBR E2) 0h 8mn 24sec
28. OLIPHANT, Evan (RCY GBR E1) 0h 8mn 33sec
54. HOUSE, Kristian (RCY GBR E1) 0h 8mn 47sec
64. PARTRIDGE, Robert (RCY GBR) E1 0h 8mn 50sec
73. HAYNES, Hamish (JAR GBR E1) 0h 8mn 54sec
80. BURROW, Jamie (ODL GBR E1) 0h 8mn 57sec
94. APPLEBY, Dale (RCY GBR E1) 0h 9mn 4sec

STAGE 1

Newton Crashes Out In Yellow

Only 5 kilometres into the first road stage, Recycling's Chris Newton in the Yellow jersey of race leader, was taken out of the bike race by another rider. It was only the two of them that fell, with Chris ending up in a road side ditch. After being helped from that landing place, and placed into the back of an ambulance on a board, Chris was taken to hospital with severe bruising but no broken bones as far as the team knows when we spoke.

It was certainly an eventful day for the Recycling.co.uk team, because not only did the team lose their prized Yellow jersey rider from the race, one of their team cars was shunted by a French driver away from the race, and then, in some small way making up for those disasters, Kristian House was one of 22 riders that got away in a break that was eventually whittled down to 12, from where he was third on the stage.

One other snippet from the race, Jonathon Dayus, one of Britain's most respected road riders, was seen riding back to the hotel after the stage, a distance of 30 kilometres, getting in some last minute training perhaps for the Nationals in two weeks.

1. SINNER Benoit AGR FRA E1 4h 32mn 54sec
2. PERQUE Franck CCN FRA E2 4h 32mn 54sec
3. HOUSE Kristian RCY GBR E1 4h 32mn 54sec

24. DAYUS Johnathan UCN GBR E2 4h 35mn 19sec
53. PARTRIDGE Robert RCY GBR E1 4h 35mn 19sec
55. HAYNES Hamish JAR GBR E1 4h 35mn 19sec
58. OLIPHANT Evan RCY GBR E1 4h 35mn 19sec
84. BURROW Jamie ODL GBR E1 4h 48mn 23sec
102. APPLEBY Dale RCY GBR E1 4h 51mn 17sec