vBulletin analytics

11th Nature Valley Grand Prix——Stage 6 Women

11th Nature Valley Grand Prix - Stage 6 Women

Kristin Armstrong Wins Fourth Nature Valley Grand Prix Title With A Teary Goodbye At Her Last American Race... Next stop Italy for Women's Giro d'Italia

By Cynthia Lou

Kristin Armstrong checks the length of her lead with one lap remaining of the final stage of the Nature Valley Grand Prix.

The crowds part and cheer on Kristin Armstrong as she approaches the finish line.

Kristin Armstrong (Cervélo Test Team) may have fiercely defended her yellow jersey at the Stillwater Criterium, leaping off the start line with determination in her eyes, but she left the Nature Valley Grand Prix well decorated and with a teary goodbye at the last American stage race of her career.

Armstrong won the overall general classification, the Jelly Belly Sports Beans Best Climber Jersey and the Freewheel Most Aggressive Rider Jersey. Shelley Olds (Proman Hit Squad) and Andrea Dvorak (Colavita/Sutter Home p/by Cooking Light) followed Armstrong’s attack in the second lap to take second and third for the stage, respectively.

Kristin Armstrong wins Stage 6 of the Nature Valley Grand Prix

A quickly shattered field saw mix ups in the final general classification, with Olds moving to second overall and Allison Powers of Team Type 1 moving up to take third overall.

“I had a lot of nerves today, thinking that it was my last race in America and knowing I had only 12, 11 seconds – there’s just no room for mishaps, mechanicals or anything,” said Armstrong. “I rode up that first hill at 85% to string it out. I wasn’t worried about who would work with me or who wouldn’t. I looked at it as an hour race, and knew that I didn’t want to leave it up to the last climb.”

“Those girls were there, and they really worked to stay on. I didn’t want to leave them so the peloton would catch them,” said Armstrong, ever the mentor, who bided her time patiently until the last few laps. “I thought that if I waited until the last lap they would be able to hold off the peloton that was about 45 seconds back. I really respect Andrea Dvorak from Colavita and Shelley Olds from PROMAN, they are both up and coming talent in America. I was happy to have them up on the podium with me.”

Armstrong’s determination and climbing abilities are widely known by everyone. “Kristin was keeping a good tempo up the hills – she was just practicing for Worlds or something!” Shelley Olds said with a laugh. “I would have loved to have helped, but it took us the whole downhill to recover.”

Olds went home with the Wheaties Sprint Jersey and a second overall on the general classification. “I knew that if I could stay on Kristin’s wheel – which was inevitable – that I could settle in to a good pace. This is the kind of race that you have to settle in to, and everyone else is going through the same thing, so if you can settle into it with a gap, then you just have to keep reminding yourself to keep going...I had my director in my ear reminding me to chill, keep my own tempo, stick with them on the climb.”

On the famous 700 meter long Chilkoot Hill that averages a 22% grade, the role of directors play a huge role in inspiring and motivating their riders in addition to relaying messages and tactics.

“I knew to line up near Kristin,” said third place finisher and breakaway companion Dvorak. “When [Armstrong] started to go up the road with Shelley and get a little gap, my director said into my ear, ‘Close that gap, close that gap! It’ll be worth your while.’ So I put in an effort, caught them, and off we went.”

Often times it’s necessary for riders to generate their own internal inspiration, which has been the case for a teammate-free Armstrong throughout the race. “Originally I was going to go out from the gun, but I ended up going the 85% to calm my nerves. When I saw it was strung out I felt that I had some control back and took it as hard as I could on the second lap.”

Sometimes the mental game of a race like this is to simply go for it and do your best, as was the case for APC’s Best Young Rider Jersey winner Amanda Miller (Lip Smacker). “Today was a race of attrition. I was just riding, and I didn’t even know where the leader was,” said Miller, who wasn’t aware she had won when she crossed the finish line. “I didn’t find out until I got back down here [to the announcers stage].”

Team Tibco put in stellar performances throughout the week, winning the Team Competition by taking a stage victory and racing consistently and aggressively every day. The Nature Valley Top Amateur Jersey went to Sydney Brown (Nature Valley Cycling Team).

The Nature Valley Grand Prix is also the third stop of the Women’s Prestige Cycling Series. Allison Powers (Team Type 1) was the new Overall Leader as well as the Sprint Jersey Leader, while the Women’s Prestige Series Best Young Rider Jersey went to Rebecca Much (Webcor Builders).

Powers Third For Team Type 1 At Nature Valley

Alison Powers put Team Type 1 on the podium Sunday for the fourth time at a women’s National Racing Calendar (NRC) event when she finished third at the Nature Valley Grand Prix.

Powers also retained her lead in the Women’s Prestige Cycling Series (WPCS) while assuming the lead in the WPCS sprint classification from her Team Type 1 teammate, Kori Seehafer. Perhaps the only disappointment for the reigning U.S. national time trial champion was that she could not hang onto the second place spot that she had held since the opening time trial of the five-day, six-stage race in Minnesota.

“It was a hard race today, I’m tired,” Powers said after completing 13 trips up Chilkoot Hill, a narrow climb on the 1.4-mile (2.3 km) course that features an average grade of 18 percent. “But our team is so amazing that come next month at the Cascade Classic, we’ll be ready to win the overall again like we did at Joe Martin.”

Powers finished 11th in Sunday’s Stillwater Criterium, 20 seconds behind stage winner and overall champion Kristin Armstrong (Cervelo Test Team). That result allowed Shelley Olds (PROMAN Hit Squad) to move ahead of Powers in the final standings.

“I pretty much knew I was riding for third when Shelley was riding so strongly and keeping up with Kristin,” Power said. “With about three laps to go, they were in sight and I was making up ground and catching and I thought maybe I could still get second. But she beat me by two seconds and rode so strongly that she deserved second.”

Powers’ already successful season includes an overall victory at the Joe Martin Stage Race, runner-up at the SRAM Tour of the Gila and third place overall at the Redlands Bicycle Classic – all NRC events. She came into the Nature Valley Grand Prix as the NRC points leader while Team Type 1 - a first-year women’s professional program – was No. 1 in the team standings.

TIBCO fights to the end, secures overall team title at NVGP

Stillwater, MN –Team TIBCO was rewarded for its consistently strong, aggressive riding all week at the Nature Valley Grand Prix, taking home the overall team general classification title for the six-stage race.

Katharine Carroll and Joanne Kiesanowski both finished in the top 10 of the final, difficult stage, the Stillwater Criterium, considered one of the hardest circuits on the U.S. race scene. The high placings secured 4th overall for Carroll and 7th overall for Kiesanowski.

“The girls rode great all week,” said Team TIBCO directeur sportif Jeff Corbett. “They rode really well as a team. That aspect kind of got away from us in Montreal and Philadelphia. But we found it again this week. They worked well together, and they were the prime aggressors of the race this week.”

The teamwork showed particularly well in Brooke Miller’s stage win Friday evening in Minneapolis. “The last lap was one of the best lead-outs we’ve done all season,” Corbett said. “We had five girls on the front the last lap leading out Brooke. It was textbook.”

Team TIBCO consistently placed riders in the top 10 of every stage, with Miller taking her stage win and 3rd place in stage 5, while Kiesanowski scored 2nd place in the second stage. The team also place six riders in the top 20 of the opening time trial. “We always want to get the overall win,” said Kiesanowski, “but we showed that we were the strongest team overall again this week. It was a testament to the team that we finished all eight riders as well.”

Carroll agreed with the assessment. “The team GC was an accurate representation of our efforts all week,” she said. “We tried to be aggressive each day. We may not have gotten the individual GC, but we were up there all week.”

“We tried to make Kristin (Armstrong, Cervelo Test Team) work hard and tire her out,” Kiesanowski added. “We dictated a lot of the attacks this week. And Brooke’s break in Stage 5 was race-changing. It was good to finally have a move that stuck to the end. That effort continued throughout the final stage, as well. “Stillwater is just a really hard day, It would’ve been good for one of us to get in the move with Kristin, but once you miss the move, it’s hard to catch back up on this course, especially when it’s someone as strong as her up front.”

But overall, Corbett was very pleased with the team’s performance, and noted that “Jo and Kat did a great job to hang in the front group Sunday. The race blew to pieces pretty early and they rode really well. Amber (Rais) and Julie (Beveridge) also did great work trying to bridge up from the second group to the first chase group. And Lauren finished really well even though she had a pulled muscle in her ribcage that prevented her from really going deep.”

Beveridge and Rais both finished the stage in the top 25, while Tamayo still finished both the final stage and race overall in 13th place.

“The whole week was good,” Kiesanowski said. “We rode really well together. I’m looking forward to the next stage race.”

Kiesanowski and the rest of Team TIBCO will have to wait a month for that, when the Cascade Classic kicks off on July 18. In between, Brooke and Meredith Miller, Carroll and Tamayo will all travel to Italy with the national team to participate in the Giro d’Italia donne, the women’s Giro, beginning July 3.


TAG:

Grand GRAND Nature nature PRIX Valley Women women WOMEN Prix

相关新闻:

上一篇 下一篇

分享到:
相关评论:

我要跟帖

网友评论仅供网友表达个人看法,并不表明本网同意其观点或证实其观点。