Eastern Promise Road Race
words: Sean GordonRuari Yeoman outsmarted the VC Edinburgh duo of Walter Hamilton and Lewis Oliphant, on their home roads, to take the win at today’s Criterium Cycles Eastern Promise RR at Rosewell. The 18 year old dealt the killer blow after being instrumental in pulling the day’s breakaway out from the peloton.
With the pace high on laps 1 and 2, attacks were coming thick and fast, with a few serious looking breakaways brought back together by the sheer speed of the roads; long winding descents interspersed with short punchy climbs. It wasn’t until the start of the third lap that the breakaway of five - Walter Hamilton, Lewis Oliphant, Jason Roberts, Ruari Yeoman and Craig McCulloch – managed to escape.
Although the gap held firm, at only about 15 seconds, over the rolling section of the circuit it was on the descent that the experienced head and legs of Jason Roberts took hold and really did the damage pulling out over a minute on the chasing group.
After the big descent the run-in was fairly undulating and the group stayed together until about a kilometre and a half to go when Lewis Oliphant attempted to evade his breakaway companions. However Yeoman was too strong and made easy work of the finish chalking up his first win of the season.
(PS It seems our man Sean received his first DQ by crossing into on-coming traffic…allegedly. We're waiting to see the picture). Ed