Location: Milton Keynes Bowl, Buckinghamshire
Event: 17 March 2012
Report: Snowdon Sports

Attacking with just over a lap of the Milton Keynes Bowl circuit to go, Claire Galloway (For Viored RT) held off the chasing pack to win the women’s race at the opening round of the Team MK Early Season Series.

Galloway, 24, started in a seven-strong group who gave half a lap to the rest of the field on the kilometre-long circuit and worked hard to get on terms before half-distance.

All attempts to split the group were chased down until Clare Leaver (Zappi’s CC) launched a big attack with five laps to go, and when she was reeled in on the penultimate lap it was the cue for Oxford-based Galloway to jump away from the tiring pack.

Galloway, who spent time training with the Great Britain team pursuit squad, showed her strength to maintain a 50-metre gap as Karla Boddy (High Wycombe CC) led out the sprint for second place from the bottom of the long finishing drag and held on from junior Alice Barnes (Twenty3C-Orbea) in third.

Results:

1 Claire Galloway (For Viored RT)
2 Karla Boddy (High Wycombe CC)
3 Alice Barnes (Twenty3C-Orbea)
4 Mary Evans (High Wycombe CC)
5 Louise Mahe (Team Mule Bar)
6 Clemence Copie (High Wycombe CC)
7 Nicky Xandora (Banbury Star CC)
8 Jenny Lake (iCycle)
9 Clare Leaver (Team Zappi)
10 Sarah Short (iCycle)

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.