LSCC, The story so far...

Loughborough Students' Cycling Club (LSCC) has once again produced some fantastic results to strengthen its position as the top university club in the country.

At the start of the autumn term on a blustery and wind-swept Curbar Gap, Paul Watson proved to be a class apart from the rest of the student field and comfortably took the individual Gold in the BUSA Hill-Climb. Fine individual performances from freshers' Jaime Mason and James Reeves helped secure the club silver in the overall team award narrowly missing out on the overall gold to Cambridge. Sarra Whelan in her first BUSA event secured individual Bronze with a determined ride in difficult conditions.

In late November and after considerable preparation, LSCC's Track team ended Manchester's four year reign as track champions on their home territory. A tremendous team performance saw LSCC outscore Manchester 31-22 a virtual annihilation. The event featured many inspired performances. Denise Hampson broke the BUSA record in the women's sprint to take Gold and also in the women's 500m TT. She was narrowly beaten into 2nd in the women's points race. Freshers' Catherine Hare and Sarra Whelan both secured point-scoring positions in all four of their events with Sarra narrowly missing out on a Bronze medal in the points' race.

The men recorded a significant 500% points improvement over the previous year. Jaime Mason qualified for the individual pursuit final stages to start what was to be an incredible individual effort over the two days. The Olympic Pursuit team featuring Denise Hampson qualified for the semi-final, unfortunately the event clashed with Denise's individual races and the team could not progress any further. The men's 4Km-pursuit team qualified for the final against the strongest line-up the competition has seen for many years. Manchester narrowly beat LSCC in the final however, leaving the line-up of Watson, Mason, Mark Falcous, Leon Marshall and Iain Roche with silver. Going into the final race of the Championships, the overall title was still to be decided. Jaime Mason faced Manchester's defending champion James Gilfillan in the 40Km Points Race (160 laps of the track!). Jaime surpassed all expectations and held the lead in the points competition for much of the early race. In the closing few laps Jaime escaped from the pack and evaded a high-speed bunch crash, cross the line first and take double points. Unfortunately Jaime's incredible effort left him one point short of the Gold, but by beating Manchester's riders Jaime had secured the overall team Championships.

The whole event was very much a team effort due to the levels of preparation and support required. The team was supported by former National Track Coach Geoff Cooke, and his words reflect a lot of what the performance meant to many people:

"I have experienced the pleasures of winning World Championships, Commonwealth Games and being an Olympian. Also the ups and downs of ten years as National Track Coach but nothing has given me more pleasure than being part of Loughborough's winning team last weekend."

In the recent BUSA Cyclo-cross championships, where the club has not won a medal in almost a decade, the team took silver overall with 6 riders in the top 14, with Daniel Smith 7th, Guy Lovett 8th and Martin Boyd 10th. The team award was based on 3 riders and LSCC missed out by 1 point, but the club showed that it was far stronger in depth than any other university. As an illustration, the nearest fourth rider from another university was 40th. Sarra Whelan once again showed her potential in only her first year by taking individual Silver in the event.

This year's BUSA overall championship has already been secured, but unfortunately, much of the early road and off-road season has been devastated by the foot and mouth outbreak. The opportunity for LSCC for to truly shine in its strongest events has therefore been taken away.

The club is also delighted to announce a further extension and strengthening of their relationship with High 5 the Performance Nutrition Company. The deal will provide LSCC with their products and form the foundation of the "Performance Package" the club will offer to its riders in the future.