Storey pens another classic as Britain bag five medals at Road World Championships

Dame Sarah Storey’s 13th road world title was a family affair.

The 41-year-old’s son Charlie and daughter Louise were in Emmen, Netherlands to cheer on their mum to yet another time trial victory at the Road World Championships.

Storey crossed the line in 29:41.90 to retain her rainbow jersey and heading into Saturday’s WC5 road race, set up a tilt at a fifth double success at the global event.

“Louise and Charlie love race day – before I set up my bike they said ‘go, go, go mummy, have a great race,” said the 14-time Paralympic champion.

“It made me smile on the start line when they were cheering away. It definitely adds to the experience and makes me even more motivated to do a good time for them.

“I wasn’t sure what sort of time it was going to take to win – you never quite know until the course is properly closed and barriered.

“I’m delighted – I was the only rider under 30 minutes in the women’s categories and to nearly catch Anna (Harkowska) on the line was good.

“It’ll be interesting on Saturday. It’s a criterium course effectively so it’ll be fascinating to see how the race pans out.”

Last around the course, Storey was peerless around the flat 10.4km circuit and reached top step in the trial for a seventh time In a winning margin of 58.03 secs.

Her nearest rivals were former world champion Anna Harkowska of Poland in second and Germany’s World Cup winner Kerstin Brachtendorf in third.

Crystal Lane-Wright, medallist at the last edition of the event in Maniago, Italy, missed out on the podium by a mere eight seconds with a time of 31:02.42.

Britain bagged five medals on the opening day of competition with world tandem champions Steve Bate and Adam Duggleby securing silver in a three-lap race.

With a 36:44.50 clocking they were pipped to the post by Dutch duo Vincent Ter Schure and Timo Fransen but came in 18 secs ahead of their Polish rivals in the bronze medal position.

Katie Toft didn’t give an inch as she also went out in defence of her world title and came back with silver, the multiple track world champion registering 37:59.26 in the two-lap contest.

Double Paralympic champions Lora Fachie and Corinne Hall added to their formidable World Championship haul and continued the British medal rush with bronze.

Ben Watson matched his Maniago performance with bronze and felt it was the ideal end to an encouraging season with Tokyo in sight.

“I was really happy – I think that’s probably one of the best time trials I’ve ever done,” he said.

“I rode it really well, despite a couple of dodgy moments where I was maybe pushing the corners a bit too much, but other than that I was really happy with how I rode it.

“To come away with third and be 50-odd seconds off the win is something I’m really happy with. Everyone in the world is stepping up, but I’ve made some big gains and had a really good season.”

Tomorrow’s action sees David Stone and Craig Collis-McCann (MT2), Hannah Dines (WT2) and Karen Darke (WH3) enter the fray in Emmen.

Images: SWPix