St. Paul Criterium Women
HTC-Columbia’s Hosking Takes the Stage In Bunch Sprint at Saint Paul Downtown Criterium; Starnes Keeps Yellow Jersey
by Cynthia Lou
Stage 2 of the Nature Valley Grand Prix, the Saint Paul Downtown Criterium, was held together by the teams with general classification hopes, resulting in a shuffling of the general classification via time bonuses as Alison Starnes (Team TIBCO) maintained the yellow jersey for one more day.
The race was strung out from the gun, with HTC-Columbia, Peanut Butter & Company Twenty12, and Colavita taking notable pulls at the front the first few laps.
A crash on the third lap found approximately 15 people in the neutral pit, including the yellow-jersey Starnes and several Team Vera Bradley Foundation, HTC-Columbia, Team TIBCO, and Peanut Butter & Company Twenty12 riders.
With the crash, chunks of the peloton struggled to bridge huge gaps. Eventually the pace eased up and most of the field regrouped. Some small breaks were attempted, but none stuck.
By the first 10 laps Peanut Butter & Co. Twenty12’s strategy for claiming the yellow jersey became apparent as Shelley Evans won all three sprint laps. Evans went on to take third in the stage and amass a total of 21 seconds in time bonuses.
Though hoping to overtake Starnes for the yellow jersey, Evans landed shy of the GC lead by just 2 seconds off the lead. Though most of the race was well controlled, the teams fought a messy last lap set up their sprinters for the win.
“We were lined up with three to go, which was too far out,” Evans explained. “We let other teams take control. I was just trying to move up and move up and never really made it far enough. You can’t win coming out of the corner on fifth or sixth wheel, which is what happened to me so I just chased in the sprint. I’m a little disappointed in how I did, but, tomorrow’s a new day and we race again.”
“It was really jumbled up at the end, all of the riders were really fighting,” said Theresa Cliff-Ryan (Colavita/Baci Pro Cycling Team) who took second on the stage. “Coming out of the last corner in second place, I just didn’t have enough to get to the line first.”
While Peanut Butter & Co Twenty12, Colavita/Baci Pro Cycling Team and Team TIBCO fought for sprint time-bonuses, HTC-Columbia took a different approach.
“Our strategy was exactly what happened – to let Chloe [Hosking] relax and wait until the final sprint and see if she could win,” said HTC-Columbia director René Wenzel. “We just wanted to go for the win, so it was a successful day.”
“Coming into the race I wanted to look after myself going into the sprint and I found myself in third place on Theresa Cliff-Ryan’s wheel, which is not a bad place to be,“ said stage winner Hosking. ”I was lucky enough to get a win. It feels really good to finally get a win under my belt this season.“
About the team strategy for the rest of the week, Hosking added, “We’ve got two really strong GC contenders and we’re confident that we’ll be able to get the time back on the girls who got the time bonuses today on the hills. Evelyn Stevenson and Linda Villumsen are two of the top climbers in the world.”
Former time trial UCI World Champion Amber Neben (Webcor Builders) continued her return to racing after recovering from a crash-marred season and was seen safely near the front of the peloton throughout the 1.4 kilometer crit course.
Heading into Cannon Falls, just seven seconds separates the top six general classification contenders. Evans is 2 seconds back, while team mates Linda Melanie Villumsen and Evelyn Stevens (HTC-Columbia) are four seconds and five seconds back respectively. Ruth Corset (Team TIBCO) is five seconds back, and Alison Powers (Team Vera Bradley Foundation) is seven seconds back.
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