A cooler evening brought slightly slower but still impressive times in Round 3 of The Decathlon Evening 10 Series by Wrekinsport as Tomos Hales starts to edge away from the chasing pack. 2021’s Series Champion is setting out a strong defence of that title as he opened the gap at the top of the standings to five points from Phil Roberts with his third win in as many events, losing 11 seconds on his Round 2 time to charge for the line convincingly looking as though he really meant it in a fine time of 21 minutes 47 seconds.
Hales had a comfortable winning margin of 43 seconds from Oliver Rodwell, making his 2022 debut with a creditable 22:30. First of the visiting riders was Royal Navy's Daniel Soltys, just seeing off Stourbridge Velo's Darren Shaw by two seconds in 22:58, 157 seconds off his Round 2 effort, with Shaw one of the minority of riders improving, in this case by 21 seconds.
Shaw's wasn’t the best improvement however, with Clare O'Donnell slicing a huge 1:36 off her Round 2 effort. She had no answer for Deb Hutson-Lumb however, making her first appearance in the Series with a fabulous 24:09 to take the Women’s win.
In the Road Bike Series Ben Wood took maximum points for the second week in a row to head to the top of the standings with a fine 25:57, 15 seconds down on Round 2, with Stourbridge Velo’s Scott O’Neill taking the Overall Road Bike honours in 25:03. Junior Ben Southgate meanwhile was one of the improvers, knocking 19 seconds off to finish 8th Overall in 23:57.
