Where Sir Bradley flops our city rowers shine

Held at London’s Olympic Velodrome, this year’s event attracted far more media interest than usual as retired Olympic cyclist Wiggins started his bid to get to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo as a rower.

But for once the superstar flopped, managing only 21st place in the men’s open 2,000 metre event.

The winner of that race was one of Peterborough City Rowing Club’s former members, Adam Neill.

The GB eight crew member clocked a very impressive time of 05:48.2 to retain his title.

That rounded off a great year for the Tokyo hopeful. He won silver and bronze medals in Word Cup regattas and finished seventh in the World Championships.

And Neill wasn’t Peterborough’s only success story as there were four more members from the club achieving a top-three finish.

Calum Titmus came top in the adaptive men’s learning disability category, making him the reigning champion for three years running.

This year he took on 2,000 metres, double his usual distance, but it didn’t stop him gaining the title with an impressive 30-second lead.

And City veteran Louise Dybell also medalled two years in a row when claiming the bronze in the women’s masters (55-59) 500m category.

Another Peterborough bronze medallist was Alice Mason, who raced in the para women’s 2,000m event. She finished just 13 seconds behind an athlete from the Invictus Games 2017 rowing team.

And completing a great day for Peterborough rowers, Matthew Hand won the bronze medal in the Year 8 boys three-minute event, finishing just a metre off a silver medal.

Alex Roberts achieved fourth place in the sixth form boys 500m event. He got a time of 1:23.8, which was only 0.3 seconds off medalling and only three seconds off winning.

In the junior boys eight-minute relay, Peterborough City’s James Toynton, Alex Leverage, Jack Collins and Benjamin Mackenzie were fifth, just 12 metres from a medal position.

In their single events earlier on in the day Toynton and Leverage were sixth and 13th respectively out of 50 in the Year 11 boys six-minute event and MacKenzie and Collins were 15th and 35th respectively out of 63 in the sixth form boys 500m race.

In the 2,000m event Mackenzie came 25th and Collins came 35th in a large field of 63 competitors.

Clementine Hambly faced tough competition in the women’s masters (30-39) 500m category, but still achieved a respectable sixth place.

Year 10 boys Thomas Bodily and Thomas Jackson placed in the middle of the 500m and five minute events and Eve Cresswell 17th and 15th in her Year 10 girls 500m and five minute events.