TWO Halesowen riders, Kinga Ingram and Ellie Swingsdale, were selected to race for the West Midlands Youth Ladies team in the recent Tour of Scotland.

The duo joined Grace Lister and Mel Southall from Wolverhampton Wheelers to form the team.

The racing was hard and competitive despite the bad weather. The West Midlands side crashed in the team trial due to road furniture and a pothole causing an accident that unfortunately put Ellie into a supporting non riding role for the remainder of the event.

Kinga, who also crashed in the initial bunch sprint battled her way through to ninth in the bunch sprint in Stage 3 and 4th on the next, hilly, road stage recovering to a fine eighth position overall and second in the queen of the mountains ranking.

The Halesowen academy continues to prosper with first-year junior Josh Field taking their first road race win of the season on Sunday, with a hectic sprint in the end of a one-hour race on a flat course around Birmingham Business Park.

Field made two attempts to escape during the race, covered at an average of 27mph, and when that didn't work he opened his sprint from 200m to go on the slightly uphill finish to win by over a bike length.

Field is one of five first-year juniors at the academy, sponsored by Wenlock Spring mineral water, and all have taken rapidly to racing against senior riders this year. In a second race at the Business Park on Sunday, David Hird and Oscar Laight finished seventh and eighth, while in a circuit race at Shrewsbury for second and third category riders Jonathan Cull came in eighth.

Elsewhere, first-year senior Hannah Lancaster finished ninth in the women's race at the Business Park, after making several breakaways during the one-hour race.