29/04/2026
JIRR RACE REPORT
On Saturday morning, in 2°C cold, Cardiff City woke up in a frosty campsite, still carrying the after effects of a few gin and tonics and an uncountable amount of pizza - because even parents need to carb load and are not subject to drinking bans when tasked with all the grunt work of driving to/from training, laundry, fuelling (both transport and athletes), trailering and time commitment without anything to show for their efforts. (This is what happens when we ask for race commentary and the support team want their 5 seconds of fame).
Anyway, eventually they got to the important stuff. The time trials went down early in sunny windless conditions before some side by side action.
‘Reuben was up first, and what made it especially impressive was that this was his first multilane race in the 1x. He handled it remarkably well. It was a genuinely hard-fought race - unlike at the free merch stalls, everyone had to earn everything. What I saw from Reuben was a mature, proper race. No panic or loss of composure. He pushed through the course with real toughness and dignity. The final order did not change much compared with the time trial, but that’s missing the point. The important thing was whether he could turn the pre-race stress into performance, and from the outside, he did exactly that. He might have a differrent opinion though.
Csege started fourth, but quickly moved into third place with things getting interesting with 800m left. Csege was just over two lengths behind the leader and one length behind second when he made his move. He passed second, taking almost a full length advantage later, and then went after the leader who had two lengths. With 300 metres left and still half a length to overturn, the race leader broke. Csege was then challenged by the chasing sculler who launched an all-out sprint, but it was too late as Csege checked the move, keeping it composed, controlled and strong. Only in the final sprint did he lift the rate to secure the win. The official result shows a 1:54 split in the last 250. From the bike, it felt like even more.’
