A junior doctor from Thornborough, near Ripon, has won a silver medal in e-cycling at the 2023 UCI E-sports World Championships.

Zoe Langham, who now works part-time as a junior doctor in Birmingham, went one better than last year, where she earned a bronze medal only hours after finishing a shift in A&E as part of her medical training.

E-cycling is a sport rapidly growing in popularity. It consists of cyclists pedalling on stationary bikes, powering virtual avatars moving on a screen.

Zwift, a competitor to Peleton, which provides the e-cycling technology and software for the world championship, has a reported user base of 2.5 million users, including runners as well as cyclists.

Former Ripon Grammar School student Zoe took up the sport to accommodate the demands of her medical training.

She balances her time on the wards alongside road racing and e-cycling. She competes for cycling team Pro-Noctis on the road and Wahoo Le Col in e-cycling.

Zoe studied at Ripon Grammar School before attending the University of Nottingham. Photo: Zoe Langham, Instagram

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The e-cycling world championship featured a new format for 2023, where competitors faced three short, explosive events.

The first event was The Punch, an 13.8km elimination-race where 100 riders competed with only the top 30 moving on the second race. In an interview after the competition, Zoe said:

“If you’d asked me what I’d be happy with coming out there, if I made it past that first race I’d be ecstatic”.

The second event was The Climb, an 8.5km series of hill repetitions which whittled the field down to 10.

The final 10 then went through an event called The Podium, where riders were eliminated one-by-one at a series of intervals until three riders remained, who then raced for the title.

Reflecting on the race, Zoe said:

“It makes all the long days at work, trying to train in the late evening hours worth it.

“It’s been really hard to juggle the job I do with the training hours necessary, and female cycling in general is just going from strength to strength.

“It’s really lovely to see and be a part of, but it definitely takes its toll. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to go part time now, so I can fit in a bit more training and time to race abroad with my team Pro-Noctis- Heidi Kjeldsen-200 degrees coffee. They’re a fantastic and very experienced team and I’m very excited to see where things go this year with them.”

Harrogate Borough Council has begun a review of the UCI Road World Championships, almost two years after the event was held.

Posted on the council’s website, the survey is open to residents and businesses and will run until June 16.

The authority says the purpose of the review is to build on “its successes and identifying any areas for improvement to inform the organisation of future events”.

The review will be conducted by the council’s overview and scrutiny committee, which is made up of elected councillors and aims to scrutinise council business.

The Stray Ferret asked the council why it was holding the survey and what the process was for the review.

A spokesperson for the council said:

“The overview and scrutiny commission has decided to look at the UCI Road World Championships with the aim of building on its successes and identifying any areas for improvement to help inform the organisation of future events.

“Following the consultation the task and finish group of the overview and scrutiny commission will produce a report.”

You can give your thoughts on the 2019 UCI World Cycling Championships by filling out the survey here.

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A controversial event

Hundreds of cyclists from 67 countries took part in the event over nine days in September 2019, with each day’s race finishing in Harrogate town centre.

It received a hostile reception from many local traders, who said they did not feel the benefits of the event coming to town, particularly as it led to many road closures that deterred people from coming into Harrogate.

But a council-commissioned report by Ernst and Young claimed the championships brought in an estimated £17.8 million boost to the district economy.

The UCI event was held on West Park Stray.

The event, which was cursed by rain, generated further controversy when it was revealed £130,000 of damage was caused to West Park Stray.

Seven months after the competition, the council brought in Lancashire firm Glendale Services to restore the Stray.

The authority gave the contract for the restoration works “under urgent circumstances”, a decision criticised by local companies at the time.

Yorkshire 2019, the organisers of the UCI, agreed to pay £35,500 to help restore the Stray.

A traffic marshal at the 2019 UCI Road World Championships in Harrogate has been jailed after she was caught selling cocaine and ketamine on the side.

Ripon woman Monique Shiels, 25, was marshalling at the world championships when police responded to a tip-off and caught her red-handed.

When confronted by officers, Shiels said: “Who was it who dobbed me in?”

Prosecutor Matthew Collins told York Crown Court:

“Information had been received by police…that this defendant was dealing drugs whilst working as a traffic marshal for (the) UCI Cycling World Championships in Harrogate.

“Police (turned up at) the location where she was reported to be and found her standing near her vehicle. Her first response to officers was, ‘Who was it who dobbed me in?’”.

Officers found £333 cash on Shiels, as well as a “quantity of orange tablets and some powdered substance” in a black bag she was carrying.

They searched her car – which she used for traffic marshalling during the event – and found digital weighing scales and a mobile phone with text messages sent between Shiels and her customers discussing deals and amounts.

The drugs stash found inside the vehicle included about 8g of cocaine and 10g of ketamine, but Mr Collins said this was just a snapshot of Shiels’s drug-dealing activities, which text messages proved had been going on “for some length of time”.

Selling drugs as crowds gathered

The court heard that Shiels had been selling drugs as crowds gathered for the 92nd UCI World Championships, whose elite competitors vying for the champion’s jersey included Denmark’s Mads Pedersen, time-trial world champion Rohan Dennis and Holland’s Annemiek van Vleuten.

Shiels was arrested on the fourth day of the week-long event.

Mr Collins said Shiels had only been charged in relation to the drugs found on her at the time, which judge Sean Morris, the Recorder of York, described as “bad prosecuting by the CPS”.

Shiels, of Water Skellgate, Ripon, was taken in for questioning following her arrest on September 25, 2019, but refused to answer police questions.She was charged with possessing cocaine, a Class A drug, and Class B ketamine, with intent to supply. She admitted both charges and appeared for sentence on Thursday.

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The court heard that Shiels had nine previous convictions for offences including violence, breaching court orders and possessing MDMA, an Ecstasy-type drug.
During conversations with the Probation Service following her arrest for the drug-supply offences in Harrogate, Shiels said she didn’t see anything wrong with dealing drugs.

Self-confessed drug user

Andrew Petterson, mitigating, said that Shiels, who worked as a sales adviser for a TV dealership, was a self-confessed drug user.

“Clearly, she is one of the misguided individuals in society that doesn’t see (drug-dealing) as a problem,” he added.

Judge Mr Morris told Shiels: “These courts hear stories of (drug-related) robberies and muggings and fights, burglaries, all to pay people like you…and that’s why you are going to prison.”

He said her offences were so serious and her previous breaches of community orders so many that anything other than an immediate prison sentence was out of the question.

Shiels was jailed for two years – a much-reduced sentence due to the delay in the case reaching the courts and the current covid pandemic that had affected living conditions in prisons.

The judge also ordered the confiscation of Shiels’s vehicle and made her pay a statutory surcharge.

This week marks one year since the end of the UCI World Championships and the serious damage to West Park Stray.

It has taken almost a year for it to turn green again. Harrogate Borough Council said as the repair works began that West Park Stray would “return to its former glory” – however the Stray Defence Association (SDA) has said it believes the work has not fully repaired the damage and said it remains “dangerous” with surface stones and ruts.

West Park Stray: A year at a glance

• UCI World Championships – September 2019
• West Park Stray pictured as a quagmire – October 2019
• Partial recovery but problems remain – March 2020
• Heavy machinery moves in to work – May 2020
• Green shoots of hope – July 2020
• West Park Stray opens to public after 316 days – August 2020
• Debate rumbles on about West Park Stray – September 2020

A year to forget on West Park Stray.

When restrictions were lifted for the UCI Championships to be held, the council was given a legal duty to return the Stray to how it was before the event.

The council said it would spend £130,000 on the restoration and outsourced the work to Lancashire-based contractors Glendale Services.

Yorkshire 2019, the organisers of the UCI World Cycling Championships, agreed to pay £35,500 to help restore the Stray.

A plaque to commemorate the UCI World Championships under 23s riding through Boroughbridge was unveiled yesterday.

One year ago the town was preparing for the cyclists to arrive. The streets were decorated with bunting and plywood bike sculptures were placed at various locations.

The team that organised the day’s event thought a blue plaque would create a legacy for the day. It was fitted in the centre of town near the new cycle racks at Havenhands The Bakers shop.

Susan Jagger, a member of the legacy organising team, said:

“We’d never had the big cycling events come through the town before. We spent six months preparing how to welcome the cyclists properly.

“Boroughbridge is a very popular cycling centre and it is fitting to have a reminder that our town was a part of this prestigious International event.”

Last year the local shops took part in the celebrations by decorating their windows.

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The team planned to unveil the plaque in April alongside the mayor and Team GB cyclists but, due to the pandemic, it had to be postponed.

The unveiling yesterday was carried out by last year’s mayor, Cllr Geoff Haldenby, who helped with the UCI celebrations last year.

West Park Stray appears lush and green after the grass was mowed for the first time since work began in spring.

However, anyone hoping to take advantage of the warm weather this weekend and enjoy the newly-mown grass will have to look elsewhere.

Harrogate Borough Council said an announcement about the reopening of West Park Stray will be made in the coming days, but for now, it remains fenced off.

A drone image of West Park Stray taken today, July 31, by David Simister.

Work to restore the Stray began at the end of April, with Lancashire-based Glendale Services appointed to carry out the work under ‘urgent circumstances’. The organisers of the fan park for the UCI Road World Championships last September, when the damage was done, have agreed to pay £35,500 towards £130,000 of work.

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The council said that sum was not purely for repairs following the UCI event, but comprised repair to other long-standing issues:

• £38,105 for repairs to grassed areas of West Park Stray
• £65,385 for pavement, footpaths, Heras fencing, bedding and verge repairs, reinstatement of bins and benches plus any additional council work
• £20,156 to fix longstanding drainage issues
• £6,325 project management and delivery costs

When seeding began in late June, scarecrows created by local primary school children were put up across the Stray to protect the grass.

The Stray was still showing extensive damage in March