Waiting game is over for Armitstead after road race triumph

Four riders went clear on the Ryals climb on the opening lap – Cooke (MCipollini-Giambenini) and Garmin-Cervelo trio Armitstead, Sharon Laws and Emma Pooley, the defending champion.

And the 64-mile race came down to a sprint finish in Stamfordham, with Armitstead first, Cooke second and Laws third.

Armitstead, runner-up in 2009 and 2010, said: “Finally, thank heavens. I’ve been getting too many silvers. It’s nice to have a result on the road.

“It was hard. It was made a lot easier by the other girls in the break. It was anybody’s race. Emma and Sharon were attacking and Nicole did a lot of chasing.

“Sharon went with 250 metres to go and I was planning to go with 200 to go.

“It was a long sprint but felt good.”

Olympic champion Cooke’s first British title came in 1999 and a run of nine straight successes from 2001 came to an end last year.

She had no complaints with the result.

Cooke said: “Coming into the sprint I had my markers of when I wanted to go.

“Lizzie anticipated me and she was stronger on the day.”

Elsewhere, Featherstone Road Club staged the annual Pete’s Race, and Dillon Byrne (Herbalife) won the event from Gilberdyke’s Adam Duggleby, sprinting clear at the end of the 89-mile race based on a circuit, near Pontefract.

Honley’s Mark Buckingham (Huddersfield Star Wheelers) won his own club’s road race yesterday, the Eric Biddulph Memorial event at Crow Edge, near Holmfirth.

Buckingham – who had only just flown back from competing in a triathlon in Germany at 4am – took victory by inches from Dewsbury’s Chris Fothergill (Sowerby Brothers), while Leeds rider Michael Knight was third.

In time trialling, the promoting club’s Ged Millward took third spot in the Otley CC 50-mile event at Dishforth, North Yorkshire. He covered the distance in 1hr 48min 34sec, while Preston’s Matt Moorhouse won with 1:47.56.