Conor White pipped defending champion Kaden Hopkins in an exciting sprint finish to win his second National Road Race Championship title on Sunday.

It was the exact scenario the professional cyclist had hoped for heading into the 60-mile race, with him and Hopkins both crossing the finish line at Clearwater Beach, St David’s, in 2hr 32min 0.1sec.

“All of us have been training a lot so I knew it was going be fairly matched,” White told The Royal Gazette.

“It is a course that suits me a little bit better and I have been working on my sprint a bit, so I basically came into the day wanting a sprint.

“Kaden was there at the end but it was a cross tailwind, so I knew that if I jumped before him and stayed on the left hand side he wouldn't be able to draft me, and it would be a case of who had the best legs. We both did two of our best sprints ever so it was a good finish.”

It was no real surprise to see the race go down to the wire as the four lead riders seemed content to stay together and test themselves in a sprint.

“There wasn't too many attacks and it was pretty tame,” White said. “But every attack that went I shut it down and then just kept it together for the sprint. As long as I wasn't leading the sprint out I was pretty confident I could take it.”

With the victory White has earned the honour of competing internationally with the national flag on his jersey.

“It's always great to come back, race at home and fight for the jersey,” he said.

“Now that I've won I get to make a special jersey and have the Bermuda flag on it and represent that overseas, which is always nice, and also we get UCI points which help with qualifications for different international events.”

Newly crowned national time-trial champion Nicholas Narraway (2:32:01) was third across the line to round off the podium finishers in the men’s open division.

Karen Bordage (2:00:37) won the 40-mile women’s open race, with Karen Smith (2:08:46) and Panzy Olander (2:17:01) taking second and third.

There was cause for double celebration for the junior men’s and women’s winners with defending champions Jackson Langley and Charlotte Millington having also retained their national time-trial titles three days earlier.

Warwick Academy student Langley won the 40-mile junior men’s race in a time of 1:43:40 and was thrilled to again be standing tallest on the podium.

“It feels really good and I have immense pride being Bermudian and wearing the national flag again,” he said.

“I am just coming off a broken collarbone so I wanted to just preserve myself and break it up fairly early so I did not run any risk of crashing.

“I planned to go first lap and went first lap, and I just soloed it for basically the whole thing.

“It was still super tough. It’s a little bit windy so I just put my head down and worked as hard as I possibly could against the other guys.”

Jacob Wright (1:50:25) and Jens Drea (1:50:43) finished second and third in the junior men’s division.

Bermuda High School for Girls student Millington won the 30-mile junior women’s race in 1:27:48 and was equally delighted to defend her crown.

“I came here to defend it, wanted to do it solo, and was glad I could execute,” she said.

“My strategy was to attack as early as possible. I did a small one on St David’s Road but wasn’t committed, so I didn’t really break that much and ultimately it was just me and Karen Bordage, and we held it to the finish.”

Naomi MacGuiness (1:35:01) and Skye Ferguson (1:35:24) rounded off the top three in the junior women’s division.

Will Drea (1:43:00) pipped VT Construction team-mates Steven Smith (1:43:00) and Philip Mace (1:43:00) in another exciting sprint finish to win the 40-mile men’s masters race.