A strong Manx contingent will fly the flag at the 2023 British National Road Championships which take place in Redcar and Cleveland later this month.

The event gets underway on Wednesday, June 21 and continues until Sunday, June 25. The big news is that reigning national men’s road race champion Mark Cavendish is not competing in the event during what is his final season before retiring.

With the Tour de France getting underway on July 1, it’s more than likely that the Manx Missile is focusing all his efforts on that as he looks to surpass the record of 34 stage wins he currently holds alongside the great Eddy Merckx.

The British event features the national championships for time trial, circuit and road race disciplines, with Isle of Man riders in action across all of them. The under-23 men’s time trial kicks off the action on June 21 where brothers Zac Walker (Tudor Pro Cycling U23s) and Max Walker (Trinity Racing) fly the flag, before Ben Swift and Lizzie Holden are the island’s representatives in the men’s and women’s time trials.

Next up is the circuit race championships and, while there are no Isle of Man riders in the women’s event, there will be five in the men’s, namely Matt Bostock (Equities Black Spoke), siblings Leon and Tom Mazzone of Saint Piran and the aforementioned Walker brothers.

The week is rounded off with the blue riband men’s and women’s national road race championships.

Holden and Jessie Carridge (riding for Hutchinson‐Brother UK) fly the flag in the women’s race, while the men’s event features Swift, Bocky, the Mazzones, the Walkers, Team Novo Nordisk’s Sam Brand as well as island resident Chris Lawless (Lotto Dstny Development Team).

Swift is aiming for a hat-trick having won the men’s road race title in both 2019 and 2021, while Holden was third in the 2019 women’s road race (the same year she was second in the u23 time trial). She was also fourth in last year’s race so she will be aiming to go even better this time around.

Zac Walker is also the reigning junior national road champion, having clinched the red, white and blue jersey in North Yorkshire last year.