‘Disqualification was always a bit of a nuclear option’ – Medals returned to British National Hill Climbers after Cycling Time Trials reverse disqualification

Three days after the British National Hill-Climb had finished on Porlock Toll Road in Somerset, open team prize winners, Dan Evans and Giles Drake were asked to return their medals.

They’d breached Regulation 8 for changing teams more than once a year. Evans had changed teams from Assos to Black Catt CC in February, before changing back to Assos seven months later. Drake had changed from Wheelbase Cabtech Castelli to Port Sunlight Wheelers in July, and then to Assos in October.

The two riders had finished seventh and 10th in the open championship, alongside their teammate and race-winner, Ed Laverack, with their cumulative places winning them the open team prize. After their disqualification, the team title was awarded to Paddy Clark, Eugene Cross and Carl Jolly of Schils-Doltcini RT.

"Oh well, was good while it lasted," Evans wrote in an Instagram story after learning of his disqualification.

But the fight wasn’t over for Drake and Evans. On the 10th November, their appeal was heard by the Ad Hoc Committee of Cycling Time Trials.

The board, made up of directors Sue Bowler, Alexander Royle and the Yorkshire district secretary Steve Burrows, agreed by majority decision to reverse their earlier ruling, finding that the riders’ actions had not been dishonest, and that they had acted “without intention to make pecuniary advantage.”

“There had been no breach of Regulation 8 because the club they had previously belonged to was not affiliated when they entered their first event of the year and when they later changed to Assos UK Race Team it was their first change of that calendar year,” the statement read.

While Evans has suffered some reputational damage, he’s been pleased with the appeal process.

“I think disqualification was always a bit of a nuclear option for them straight from the off,” he told Cycling Weekly, “but they've had the good grace to go back on that. Kudos to them really. It can't have been easy for them to go back on a decision they made - there's a lot of unpicking to do now, I imagine.”

Evans’ initial disqualification came after nearly ten years of riding with the ASSOS team; in his first year racing with them, he won the 2017 National Hill Climb.

“I've been with ASSOS as my club/team ever since then. ASSOS were not affiliated at the start of the year, so I selected my local cycling club to do some events and then went back to ASSOS. So that's literally all it was.”

Evans and Drake have now had their results reinstated, their disqualification withdrawn and their medals returned.

“The overriding feeling is relief,” Evans said.