Eirias pupil Sol wins GB cyclo-cross title

YOUNG cycling sensation Sol Kerfoot-Robson is celebrating after being crowned a British champion.

The 14-year-old, a pupil at Ysgol Eirias, Colwyn Bay, scooped the British Cyclo-Cross Under-15 title in Abergavenny last weekend.

It rounded off a great season for the talented teenager from St Asaph.

Last Saturday’s event was the last important race in this cyclo-cross season.

Sol had already raced in the British series (National Trophy) from Southampton to Durham.

He started the season well, following on from racing for Wales in the Inter-Regional Mountain Bike Championships in September.

In the first three National Trophy rounds, he was first under-15 twice and second once.

Sol, whose team is based at Marsh Tracks in Rhyl, suffered a bit with illness at the end of November and early December, but recovered well.

He took part in a five-day training camp with Welsh Cycling in Newport between Christmas and the new year.

Unfortunately, he did not finish the last National Trophy race in Derby on January 4 due to a mechanical prob- lem, so he had a fairly poor gridding for the National Championship in South Wales.

During the race he took about three laps to catch his main British Under -15 rival, Ewan Cameron from Bradford.

The two then spent the rest of the race together with neither getting more than a couple of seconds on the other until the last lap.

Sol then made a big attack coming through the pits at the start of the last lap and established a gap of about five seconds.

He pulled out a little more time over the second half of the lap and took the under 15 win.

He was presented with the Findus Trophy, which has a number of famous names on it including mountain bike legend Nick Craig, ex-world junior cyclo-cross champion Roger Hammond and current Sky Team rider Ian Stannard.

Sol has been racing now for about 10 years and has won Welsh titles on the road, mountain bike and cyclocross.

He has previously won British Schools titles but this was his first British Cycling national title.

Sol hopes to follow in the tyre tracks of his elder brother Dylan, who has been riding for the GB Team for the last couple of years, including World Cup and World Championships races.