Sam Baker, left and Tim Wiggins.
CYCLING TWO members of the Wightlink Cycle Racing Team have taken the next step of their careers, after securing their second category licences.
Sam Baker and Tim Wiggins achieved the feat at separate races at Portsmouth’s Mountbatten Centre.
Baker’s success came on at a circuit race alongside Dominic Coughlin.
He knew he only needed to finish fifth and coming up to the final 200m, Baker was in the perfect position and used his powerful sprint to win the bunch sprint and take third. Coughlin finished strongly within the main bunch.
At the same event, in a fourth category race, Kev Foster came sixth and Jack Elton-Walters came 11th.
Wiggins’s success came on Wednesday for a track race, alongside Foster and Coughlin.
All the team members worked hard in the first half of the race, but it was in the final sprint that Wiggins came into his own, beating the man he had tracked for 15 minutes by five bike lengths, and thus gaining the licence he needs to move up to the next level of the sport.
At the same event, James Ebdon took part in the elite race and finished well in a small bunch sprint.
On Sunday, Ebdon, Baker, Wiggins and Tibbutt travelled to Wiltshire for the Cricklade Kermesse, a 15-lap event.
Wiggins targeted the King Of the Mountains classification, which was contested on every other lap, and after winning two of the uphill sprints and taking top three positions in two others, earned Wiggins second overall.
Meanwhile, Tibbutt and Baker supported Ebdon in the finishing straight, in the hope his sprint could win line honours.
Unfortunately though, the narrow circuit and speeds topping 40mph caused a large crash on the finishing straight, ending their chance, though thankfully no one was badly hurt.