The Junior Tour of Wales — one of the biggest junior races in the UK and one I’d been looking forward to all season. The weather delivered the full Welsh experience (sun, rain, and everything in between), and so did the racing. Four stages, plenty of drama, and some results I’m really proud of. Here’s how it all went down:

Stage 1
Flat circuit, decent weather, and a peloton full of energy. A group of seven riders rolled off the front early, and with no one in the bunch really committing to the chase, they stayed away. I won the sprint from the peloton for 8th, so technically I was “best of the rest.” Not the most thrilling race, but a solid start.

Stage 2
No aero bikes, no fancy setups — just legs, lungs, and a regular road bike. Perfect. I put the power down on a course that suited me and came away with joint 6th. Happy with that one!

Stage 3
This was the real leg-burner: climbs everywhere, attacks flying, and me trying again and again to get a move to stick. In the end, a teammate got up the road in a break, so I had to sit tight in the bunch. Another sprint finish, another bunch sprint win from my group — 6th on the stage. Consistency was the name of the game!

Stage 4
Final stage, summit finish, and plenty of chaos. A surprise split in the peloton left me and a teammate on the wrong side of it, so we had to go full gas to bridge across. Made it just in time, sat in to recover, then hit the final climb as hard as I could. Finished 5th on the day and 4th overall on GC out of over 100 riders! As a first-year, that result means a lot — easily one of my best weekends on the bike so far.