Heres my take on Sundays Nationals.

Endura made a bollox of it!!

Alright Endura are not in the same league as Sky but they are good, in fact at their level they are the current best in Europe, which makes it frustrating that when Sky and even Raleigh got players in the break Endura were nowhere to be seen. An end game with say Stannard against Tiernan-Locke would have been cracking to witness. Instead Endura spent a lap or two trying to haul in a seven minute break before they imploded and had to back off. They must be ruing this even now as they genuinely do have a depth of talent to be challenging for this title. I hope they do a better job at the Tour of Britain in September. In fact I will stick my neck out and predict that they will get more than their share of success when that race comes to town.

Congrats to Ian Stannard. A proper hardman and a natural successor to Sean Yates in my eyes. He bossed the race with Alex Dowsett at his side and i look forward to seeing this guy at the head of the bunch with the jersey on.

The ladies race was more or less predictable perhaps except the winner – Sharon Laws. The AA Drinks girls left Nicole Cooke for dead from the word go and Laws was a worthy winner. How good is Sarah Storey by the way. Without being patronising heres a Paralympian mixing it at the top level. Inspirational!

Looking forward to Tiernan-Lockes victory next year. You read it here first