Simon Jackson MBE, Judo Paralympic Gold Medal Winner

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UCI Disability Cycling Grand Prix of Wales 2010

Event Sunday 16th May 2010 \| Newport Velodrome (Wales)
The 5th UCI Disability Grand Prix of Wales was held at Newport (Wales) last Sunday with riders from Brazil, South Africa, Romania, Spain, Belgium, France, Slovenia and Ireland competing against a Great Britain team. Now an established P1 World ranking event in the UCI calendar, this year’s Grand Prix was the first track event in the World to utilise the new classification system implemented by the UCI in January 2010 and will follow the programme format to be used at the London 2012 Paralympics.
The event is on the European calendar as a P1 event which means it is a Points scoring event towards a nation’s ranking for the end of the year but crucially, not a qualifying event for London 2012. The race programme was also a major test for the teams with the events being held over the one day whereas in London 2012, they will be held over three days.
Simon was competing in the Male BVI 1000m Time trial and the Male BVI Sprint with pilot Barney Storey who competing in the Paralympic World Cup back in May 2009.
Simon had been training hard towards this competition. As he is still relatively new to the sport of cycling, Simon has been focusing on his technique and stamina. Confident with the practice session the day before the big event, Simon was looking forward to putting all his hard work and practice into action!

Stepping up to the challenge...

The first event was the BVI Kilometre time trial. Simon and Barney had some excellent competition with fellow team mates, Anthony Kappes and his pilot Dave Readle and Neil Fache and his pilot Crag McLean. Neil and Craig set an excellent time of 1.03.093 which was extremely close to the world record so Simon was under quite a lot of pressure to beat their outstanding time. Stepping up to the challenge with Barney, they did a 1.04.392 which put them into second place. His fellow team mate Anthony Kappes was just fractions off Simon’s time, Anthony did the time trial with his pilot Dave in 1.04.392. This was unbearable to watch for his family who were watching in the stands of the Velodrome as Simons 2nd place was under threat!

Afternoon arrives and Simon had his biggest challenge of the day ahead, the BVI Sprint.

Simon qualified 3rd fastest in the Sprint and was racing against his fellow team mate Anthony Kappes. The race was full of Barney’s tactics, pushing Dave and Anthony up the banking to try and secure a fast get away before the last lap. Three laps to go and Barney decides to take his chances and dives down the track and speeds off towards the finish line… As both teams are equal with speed and power the last seconds of the race were nail biting, wheel to wheel, Dave and Anthony just won the race by a half a wheels length, leaving Simon and Barney to fight for Bronze medal.

Unfortunately Barney incurred an arm injury and could not continue to race against the Irish for 3rd place.
Simon had mixed emotions about the day, he was pleased with his performances and said he did the best he could do and will continue to train hard to improve the times he had done on the day.