TOM MURRAY escaped major injury during a horrific pile-up when riding for his Sigma Sport Specialized team.

They made the trip across the channel for the 172km Paris-Troyes, a UCI 1.2 ranked event with many top European professional teams taking part. The race was marred by a huge crash on a descent with riders hitting speeds of 70kph.

Many riders were injured, so many so, in fact, that there weren’t enough ambulances to take the riders to hospital.

Murray escaped suffering a bad injury by somersaulting into a field. He remounted on a spare bike as his original one was smashed into two pieces and finished in 70th, 2min 21sec behind race winner Jonathan Hivert (Saur-Sojasun).

Several local riders were in action at the CDNW Youth League event at Southport. Each age group competed in two races on the Victoria Park circuit.

Abby Parkinson (Aire Valley RT) was second in both her races to Melissa Lowther (Planet X). Parkinson is racing in a lower age category so this was an extremely impressive result.

Mirfield youngster Jake Womersley (Aire Valley RT) took the win in the first event for Under 16 boys with his teammate Oliver Wood in third.

Former Holme Valley Wheelers Jacob Scott and Leon Gledhill, now riding for Planet X, were second and seventh.

The second race featured the same four riders in the thick of the action, Oliver Wood getting the better of Scott in second, Womersley in third and Gledhill in fourth.

Holme Valley Wheeler Gabriel Cullaigh was 12th in both races and clubmate Leon Woodhouse’s best result was 10th in the first event.

Star Wheelers’ Mark Buckingham rode the 3rd and 4th Cat event at Darley Moor.

The Olympics 2012 triathlon candidate is competing in some early-season road races as part of his training at nearby Loughborough University. Buckingham went for a solo breakaway with seven laps remaining and finished seventh.