Cycling: Cooke gets timing right to triumph on home soil

Olympic and World Champion Nicole Cooke confirmed her status as overwhelming favourite in the British National Championships when she claimed her tenth road-race title in a three-way sprint at Abergavenny.

The Vision 1 rider outgunned Yorkshire's Lizzie Armitstead and fellow Olympic medallist Emma Pooley after the trio went clear with 30km to go.

Cooke's victory continued a wave of successes for Vision 1, with French team-mate Christel Ferrier Bruneau winning the French national championships and Cooke taking four wins in the last fortnight.

"I knew that Lizzie was fast in a sprint, but I timed my own effort well, and went all out," Cooke said afterwards. "In any case, you're not looking backwards [at your rivals] you're looking forwards at the line."

For Welshwoman Cooke, winning on home soil gave her 10th championships gold medal an extra sparkle."Each one's been good for different reasons, winning alone in 2004 by three minutes was something I'll never forget. But this year a lot of my friends and family are here, and that's very special, too."

If Cooke's victory had been widely predicted, in the senior men's race outsider Kristian House was a surprising but well-deserved winner.

This year's National Championships capacity line-up of 190 included all three of Great Britain's representatives at the 2009 Tour de France – David Millar, Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish – as well as other big UK names from cycling's top series, the ProTour.

However, after House and three others edged ahead mid-race, a lack of collaboration in the main bunch suddenly tipped the odds in the leading foursome's favour.

Come the finish, House blasted past double under-23 national champion Pete Kennaugh and Cervelo rider Daniel Lloyd for what the Rapha Condor pro admitted afterwards was an unexpected victory.