Israel Cup - Yokne'am

Two days after the stage race in the mountains of Cyprus the team made a split and while Chris and Alex stayed in Cyprus to compete in the final round of the sunshine cup completing the series, Paul and Ben took a flight over to Israel for a succession of three events starting with back to back races in Yokne'am and Haifa.

It was an eventful first night for the two riders getting lost directly from the airport and straying into Palestine territory in the early hours of the morning meaning a 5am arrival at the Hotel in Haifa!

After settling in and getting some sleep the riders then made their way to both courses for practice as the races were one day after the other. The general feeling was that the Yokne'am course was an excellent course with everything from steep ups to technical downs but the Haifa course had little to offer other than a huge rock garden.

Both riders had made the decision to go to Israel in search of important UCI points and with this in mind nervously headed over to Yokne'am for the Friday morning race in heat exceeding 30 degrees! It was a strong field including the Estonian, Hungarian and Israeli National Champions with 40 plus riders all looking for points.

Both riders got off to a good start until a crash on the first bend held both of them back leaving them to chase the groups ahead. Paul managed to get onto the second group with the first in view and jostled for position moving up well through the field just outside the top 10. Ben meanwhile had begun to move up through the field when disaster struck – the chain dropped whilst under full power and sent his knee crashing into the handlebars leaving him in severe pain. After some effort to try to ride it off he had to pull out of the race with a badly swollen knee.

Paul was riding well and looking good for a push on the door of the top 10 until a dropped chain cost him around a minute and with it about 5 places – a bad lap followed before a strong last lap left him in 22nd position, out of the points but happy with his form going into the next races.

Both riders really enjoyed the course at Yokne'am and will look to recover before the race in Haifa tomorrow.