Champions Crowned

13 Dec 2020 | 09:15 AMBy: Jo Mackey

The final group of Champion of Champions were decided on the final day of the road race for the 2020 Masters Road Nationals Championships held on the Gold Coast.

The fields were again faced with wet conditions around the course

It was a bold race from Matthew Lambert in the Masters Men 1, attacking only three laps into their 91.8km ride when the pace slackened off.

Joined by race favourite Troy Herfoss (Gold Coast Cycle Club), the duo put more than 4 minutes into the chasing pack, when Herfoss flatted on a climb trying to make a break from his rival.

That would leave Lambert to finish off the race by himself as he cruised solo to the line +3:37min in front of Kyle Godson, who would take home the overall title after four days.

"I wanted to make it hard from the start just to try and spread the group out."

"I managed to keep that time gap of three minutes on a tough course which I thought suited me," Lambert said after the podium presentation.

The final race of the day was the Masters 5 men and while Tim Hoy rode away with the gold medal, the overall title would be a tight one with Peter Gwynne winning Champion of Champions on a countback from Nick Miller.

Gwynne with a stronger result in the TT giving him the green and gold jersey.

There was no need to check the books for the Masters Women 1 as Alana Forster made it a clean sweep in her category with her third gold medal of the championships and the Australian jersey to boot.

"It was such a tough course out there but credit to all the girls who kept battling away and certainly gave me something to work for," she said.

Sixty-eight races were held across the four days of competition which started with the Time Trial in the Tallebudgera Valley, before riders encountered head winds and searing heat on Thursday as part of the Criterium racing at Luke Harrop Memorial Criterium Centre and rounding it out with a windy and wet road race at Guanaba.