CYCLING: COOKE IS COOL IN HEAT OF TITLE BID; Welsh star cheers her home crowd as she makes it a hattrick.

Byline: Gavin Allen 

BATTLEHARDENED Nicole Cooke sealed a hattrick of Women's British Cycling Championship titles after a 74mile duel with Rachel Heal at the Celtic Manor Resort.

Cooke rode off with her fourth senior win in five years, and the under23 title, despite the injury setbacks that have dogged her recent rides following crashes in her last two races.

The Wick youngster admitted she wasn't her usual supremelyconfident self after having eight stitches in her knee following her spill in Montreal and then badly bruising her elbows in her comeback race at Italy's Giro de Trentino.

But the 20yearold formed onethird of a breakaway trio, comprising Heal and champion duathlete Vicky Pincombe, that led the 30strong field from the beginning.

Cooke recorded a time of three hours, 32 minutes and 51 seconds after finally breaking the challenge of Heal 175 metres from the finish line.

``I must admit that coming into the race I wasn't as confident as I have been because of the crashes, but I trained as best I could to recover and I did it,'' said Cooke.

``At the start of the race I didn't feel particularly good and I thought it would come down to a group of five or six of us. But it was just three and, coming into the finishing laps, I could feel a twinge in my knee.

``But we (the front three) worked well together to establish the lead we had. Rachel was a good competitor and she pushed me hard, so it was all the better to win having worked hard for it.

``The Wentworth hill was very draining, but the inclines on the finishing circuit are worse.

``It depends on what type of rider you are, you either can go up them or you suffer and it's a matter of getting through it.

``But this is a fantastic course, worthy of the World Cup, and I'm very proud to have won it here.''

In many ways though, the story of the race was the performance of relative road race newcomer Pincombe, who fought Cooke and Heal only to fall away as the two rivals pushed each other to the limit on the final ascent 500m before the finish line.

In the junior championship, 15yearold Amy Hunt won the coveted British jersey while Lorna Webb and Catherine Hare finished second and third respectively in the under23 race.