Downing snatches third spot after late Reservoir surge

The fourth round of the Premier Calendar National Series, the event at Hexham was won by Preston’s Ian Bibby, riding for the Motorpoint Pro Cycling team managed by Sheffield’s Malcolm Elliott.

It was former Sheffield University student Tom Murray who set the early pace, attacking with Stephen Gallagher (Cycle Premier-Metaltek) on the second of seven laps.

The pair extended their lead to more than two minutes before a chase was started by Motorpoint, with Bibby and team-mate Jonny McEvoy leading the drive to pull back the leaders.

Eventually all back together, as the race headed for the line it looked like Motorpoint would dominate the podium, but Downing made a late charge for the line and snatched third spot in the last few inches.

Elsewhere, the course record was broken in the Yorkshire Road Club 25-mile time trial at Topcliff, North Yorkshire, on Saturday.

Ferryhill Wheelers’ Keith Murray took the win with a time of 51min 49sec, beating Preston Wheelers’ Robin Brennan by almost two minutes, while Boroughbridge-based Ian Fairweather (Yorkshire Road Club) was third.

His team-mate Vince Macklan, a Leeds-based firefighter, was just six seconds further back in fourth, while York’s Mark Wolstenholme (Team Swift) was fifth and Huddersfield’s Nigel Haigh (Planet X) was sixth.

And in the Veterans TTA North Midlands 25-mile event at Worksop, Scunthorpe Poly CC’s Antony Nash was second fastest, while Mark Thaxter (Huddersfield Star Wheelers) took third, 1-10 behind overall winner Ian Cammish (Planet X).

Levi Leipheimer snatched the Tour de Suisse title away from Damiano Cunego after making up a deficit of almost two minutes on the erstwhile race leader during yesterday’s individual time-trial.

Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara won the ninth and final stage after finishing the 32.1-kilometre race in Schaffhausen in a time of 41.01 minutes, but it was Leipheimer who was the big winner as Italian Cunego was left empty handed.

Cunego of Lampre had started the final day with a one minute, 36-second advantage over nearest challenger Steven Kruijswijk and was 1:59 clear of 37-year-old American Leipheimer, who was in fourth place overall.

However, Leipheimer took the crown after finishing third in the individual time-trial – 13 seconds behind Cancellara (Leopard Trek) and four behind his RadioShack team-mate Andreas Kloden.

Cunego came home 2:16 mins behind Cancellara – who also won first stage time trial – meaning he lost the Tour de Suisse title to Leipheimer by just four seconds.

Dutchman Kruijswijk of Rabobank was third in the overall classification, 1:02 adrift of Leipheimer.