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Sally just cannot be stopped!
Defending her National Marathon Title, Sally Bigham (GB) played to her strengths, and rode off the front to a solo victory to retain her British Champion's Jersey.
In 2008 Sally broke onto the scene and took the title as the female Marathon Champion in a surprise win. One of the main focuses of her first year with a professional team was to retain this title, and prove that she is more than a one hit wonder. With her victories this season already pointing to a star in the making. With a stunning third place performance at the Lake Garda festival, riding in the company of the World's best at the marathon event, it was obvious that Sally had a good chance at the title. This confidence and the serious training regime that she has adhered to, saw Sal having the best preperation that she could have ahead of the Big Welsh Weekend's National Marathon event.
The race itself, however, didn't start well. On the first climb, facing competition from many time silver medalist Liz Scalia, and the prospect of a challenge from reigning cross country champion Jenny Copnall, sally really went for it. On the descent, determined to put a good enough gap into her rivals, she pushed herself, and unfortunately had a high speed dismount. “It flung me off my bike. I landed hard on my hip, but jumped back on. I just couldn't face the prospect of DNFing.” Overcoming the pain simply by “not looking down at my leg”, Sally rode on, and eventually crossed the finish line with a 10 minute lead over Copnall, with a time of 04:33:13 hours for the 100km course.
The victory wasn't something that Sally could savour. Her hip was in a bad way, and with the adrenaline subsiding, she fainted, and was taken by the medic, via ambulance to hospital. She was later discharged with deep bruising and a prescription of R.I.C.E – Rest Ice Compress Elevate.