Location: Bridgnorth, Shropshire
Event: 7 April 2013
Report: Snowdon Sports

Attacking on the final climb, Joe Atkins (Coventry Road Club) held off his two breakaway rivals to land his first road victory in Wolverhampton Wheelers’ three-lap race on the Rabbit Run circuit.

All attempts to split the field of third and fourth categories came to nothing as the bunch stayed vigilant until the final lap when Atkins escaped with Richard Bussell (Beacon RCC) and ex-athlete Phil Hinch (Brotherton Cycles).

The trio worked well together to keep the rest at bay until Atkins attacked again with around a kilometre to go, crossing the line five seconds clear of Bussell and Hinch with Chris Wilkinson (Paramount CRT) clipping off the front of the chasing pack to take fourth spot.

Atkins, who turned 19 two weeks ago, is the grandson of multi cyclo-cross champion John and the nephew of current National Trophy veterans champion Darren, and came into the race on the back of a busy cyclo-cross campaign. “I love the cross and I want to get a few wins in that before I look at anything else,” he said.

“That’s my main goal – I’ve got to keep up the family tradition. But I loved it today, it was brilliant, and I’ve entered five or six more road races – we’ll see what we can do.”

Result:

1 Joe Atkins (Coventry RC)
2 Richard Bussell (Beacon RCC)
3 Philip Hinch (Brotherton Cycles)
4 Chris Wilkinson (Paramount CRT)
5 Ryan Bevis (NFTO)
6 Mark Westwood (British Cycling Private Member)
7 Jordan Bason (MG-Maxifuel Pro Cycling)
8 Graham South (Paramount CRT)
9 Chris Taylor (Wolverhampton Wheelers)
10 Gareth Jones (Wolverhampton Wheelers)

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British Cycling would like to thank the organising team, officials and everyone else who helped promote this event. Our sport could not exist without the hundreds of people, many of them unpaid volunteers, who put in many hours of hard work running events, activities and clubs.