The Women's Road Racing Thread 2016

[Guillaume33]

Victory for Marianne Vos in "Rabobank 7- Dorpenomloop Aalburg"

1. Marianne Vos (Rabobank-Liv) NED 2:56:05
2. Lauren Kitchen (Hitec Products) AUS +2"
3. Anouk Rijff (Lotto Soudal) NED +46"
4. Claudia Koster NED +46"
5. Kaat Hannes (Lensworld) BEL +46"
6. Jacqueline Dietrich GER +49"
7. Nina Kessler (Lensworld) NED +1'13"
8. Shara Gillow (Rabobank-Liv) AUS +1'13"
9. Monique Van de Ree (Lares-Waowdeals) NED +1'13"
10. Wiebke Rodieck GER +1'13"

Anouk Rijff is only 20, she was 5th in GP de Dottignies
Jacqueline Dietrich and Wiebke Rodieck are two 19 german riders

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Marianne's doing a lot of those national races for the moment as she tests her legs out, she seems to be more or less back to at least reasonable strength for the WT races, but seems to be avoiding too much travel or longer stage races for the time being.

Ting-Ying Huang takes her second stage win in Chongming Island on the final stage, a 99km circuit race (surely somebody will try to pick her up for next year at least now, quite a few WT points now!). She may even have stolen the GC on the bonus seconds as it seems Peter van den Veen is tweeting it was a Futuroscope rider 2nd (probably Fournier or Jeuland?) and a Parkhotel rider (almost certainly Jip) 3rd - there was a big crash in the bunch with an Alé rider going down so it seems that has held the group up and affected a lot of peoples' sprints.

Edit: no, probably Eva Buurman 3rd, more Parkhotel riders 4th and 6th (one of these is Jip) with Sheyla Gutiérrez 5th for Cylance). There were apparently two crashes, Scheldeprijs style, with one in the middle of the bunch in the final leadout, and one near the front in the sprint, hence the quite unexpected result. No idea if Hosking or Kirchmann were taken down, went down or just were baulked yet.

Edit 2: apparently not Buurman, she seemingly was baulked in the crash. Van den Veen did say he was trying to guess from the images as it wasn't clear - not good weather and very messy sprint.
1 Ting-Ying Huang (Chinese Taipei/Taiwan Team) TPE
2 Roxane Fournier (Poitou Charentes-Futuroscope '86) FRA +st
3 Ilona Hoeksma (Parkhotel Valkenburg Continental) NED +st
4 Jermaine Post (Parkhotel Valkenburg Continental) NED +st
5 Sheyla Gutiérrez (Cylance Pro Cycling) ESP +st
6 Jip van den Bos (Parkhotel Valkenburg Continental) NED +st
7 Pascale Jeuland (Poitou Charentes-Futuroscope '86) FRA +st
8 Sara Mustonen (Team Liv-Plantur) SWE +st
9 Arianna Fidanza (Astana) ITA +st
10 Leah Kirchmann (Team Liv-Plantur) CAN +st

Van den Veen says he's not seen the GC yet but judging from riders' reactions Hosking picked up some seconds in a battle at an intermediate so will probably keep the GC by a second or two from Huang.

Edit 3: Two hours after the race and still no confirmed GC, other than that Hosking beat Huang by 1" and Kirchmann stayed 3rd on GC. Considering all the stages were broadcast live (albeit with malware warnings!) and provided some of the best footage of races all year (for one of the least interesting races, natch), either there's some serious transponder confusion from the crashes or we have a problem since it shouldn't take this long to get a provisional GC out.

 

[Jonhard]

Hosking got two seconds at the first intermediate and that was enough. Promising work from what was a young squad for Wiggle, albeit not against a full power WWT peleton.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Following on from Aalburg yesterday, more or less the same péloton headed across the border into Belgium and took on the Trofee Maarten Wynants today, although no Vos this time. Lotte Kopecky won the sprint for Lotto-Soudal, and after Wiebke Rodieck made the front page of results on Saturday, her twin sister Inga joined her in the top 10 today.

1 Lotte Kopecky (Lotto-Soudal Ladies) BEL 2'44'06
2 Lauren Kitchen (Australia National) AUS +st
3 Kelly Druyts (TopSport Vlaanderen-Etixx) BEL +st
4 Monique van de Ree (Lares-Waowdeals) NED +st
5 Demi de Jong (Boels-Dolmans) NED +st
6 Daiva Tuslaite (Lithuania National) LTU +st
7 Wiebke Rodieck (Koga Ladies Protective-Fachklink Dr Herzog) GER +st
8 Anouk Rijff (Lotto-Soudal Ladies) NED +st
9 Daniela Gass (de Sprinters Malderen) GER +st
10 Inga Rodieck (Koga Ladies Protective-Fachklinik Dr Herzog) GER +st

Still struggling to get any GC results beyond the top 3 for Chongming, which considering there's World Tour points at stake is pretty frustrating. If we had reportage on who had got those bonus seconds at the intermediates we could at least work it out for ourselves, but at the moment it's all a bit up in the air. We can get used to it taking a couple of hours for provisional GCs to emerge and become public knowledge in women's cycling, especially on races without coverage, but Chongming DID have coverage and therefore I can only assume there has been a catastrophic problem with identifying riders from malfunctioning or missing transponders resulting from the crashes in the run-in.

It will be interesting to see if Huang comes to Europe or North America off the back of this. She has some fairly significant WorldTour points from two stages and the GC, and looked strong in the sprint against what may not have been a full strength WT péloton but still had some solid names in it. She's 26 at the end of this month so it's hardly like she's missed her chance, looking at riders like Guarnier and Stevens who've come to the top level comparatively late. I'm sure one team or other that needs a sprinter that can pick up some points here and there with limited support will want to make her an offer, the question then will be if she wants to uproot to compete.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Finally we have the GC from Chongming, seems the problem was that with the crashes inside of 3km to go and several within the bunch on the same times, organizing who was where in the GC from placements was more complicated than anticipated.

1 Chloë Hosking (Wiggle-High5) AUS 8'30'56
2 Ting Ling Huang (Chinese Taipei-Taiwan Team) TPE +1"
3 Leah Kirchmann (Team Liv-Plantur) CAN +5"
4 Annalisa Cucinotta (Alé-Cipollini) ITA +11"
5 Roxane Fournier (Poitou Charentes-Futuroscope '86) FRA +12"
6 Jip van den Bos (Parkhotel Valkenburg) NED +17"
7 Ilona Hoeksma (Parkhotel Valkenburg) NED +st
8 Emilie Møberg (Hitec Products) NOR +18"
9 Olena Pavlukhina (BTC City-Ljubljana) AZE +st
10 Eugenia Bujak (BTC City-Ljubljana) POL +st

The upper end of the WWT overall points standing is little-affected; Kirchmann however moves into 7th; she has the same points as Niewiadoma in 6th but Kasia has the higher placements (perhaps unsurprising as she's only entered 4 of the 7 races thus far) while Hosking and Huang move into 10th and 11th respectively with their scores entirely achieved at Chongming. Jip moves into 3rd place in the U23 rankings, although frankly I think that will be rather irrelevant, as that classification is pretty much just going to be a straight head to head between Kasia and Floortje with the Pole holding the cards at present and especially with the Giro to come. Perhaps the most interesting development is in the Team standings, given that the position in the classification has an effect on invites at season's end. Wiggle take advantage of Boels and Rabo being absent to move up in the classification (now 2nd behind Boels, whose lead is cut by over 100 to a mere 417), but further down, Parkhotel Valkenburg move into the top 10 of the standings. The Taiwan team move into 10th but let's face it - they will likely score very few points going forward, however it will be interesting to see if the 156 points from Huang here are enough to keep them in the top 15-20 by season's end if the "big three", along with Orica and Canyon-SRAM, keep bogarting the points. Most dramatically, Cervélo-Bigla are relegated to 15th; I know they've only got a small roster and the loss of Van Vleuten really hurts, but with races like the Aviva Women's Tour and the three pseudo-crits left, surely Lepistö will be good for some solid banks of points, while if she doesn't get hurt I'm almost certain the Giro will yield a large bank of points for Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio.

In addition to this, we have had a couple of North American races with some stars moonlighting for smaller teams in it. The four-stage Vuelta a Costa Rica had a fairly limited field - although a fair few names who do race the Vuelta a El Salvador, plus a few pros from the region who have European contracts - Astana's Ingrid Drexel and Carolina Rodríguez were racing for the Mexican national team, while Flavia Oliveira of Lensworld also appeared as a guest rider. Oliveira - last year's Giro QOM - took the opening time trial, then was beaten to the line in a two-up sprint by 24-year-old Cuban Arlenis Sierra on the second stage. In the third stage, with some tough climbing, Sierra doubled up, taking minutes out of the whole field bar Ingrid Drexel. For the second year running, Erika Varela took the final stage, while last year's winner Milagro Mena was 7th overall. Sierra unsurprisingly won, with Drexel 2nd and Oliveira 3rd; Rodríguez was 5th, with Colombian Blanca Liliana Moreno between the pros.

 

[Jonhard]

It was a good trip for Parkhotel and they've done well in a variety of races it seems to me. Nice, in Chongming, to see an Asian squad do well too.

Observations on Wiggle:

- Delighted to see Hosking deliver for them. She's often a key cog in the machine but not often #1 sprinter. And she's funny.
- Dani King is becoming a v strong domestique on all terrains, that proven track engine working well. Now heading to California to join the ToC squad, as is Hagiwara.
- Promising Welsh girl Amy Roberts has raced solidly in a much busier program and is getting there. Allez cymru!

 

[Libertine Seguros]

While Wiggle have headed home, a lot of the Chongming péloton has elected to stay in China for the slightly more geographically interesting Tour of Zhoushan Island, a somewhat hillier island, although the race parcours doesn't feature too much in the way of serious climbing. Indeed, the first stage today was unsurprisingly a sprint, although Ting Ying Huang, she of the heroics in Chongming, was all the way down in 14th. The stage was won slightly surprisingly by Astana's Arianna Fidanza, a 21yo durable sprinter who has had some good placements in the Vuelta a Mexico, the GP della Liberazione and a couple of lower-end top 10s in the two flattest races on the calendar, Qatar and Chongming. These terrains continue to prove fertile grounds for Parkhotel with four riders in the top 11. 68 of the 79 finishers were on the same time as the winner, so that tells you it wasn't especially selective, but there are further days to come to separate the bunch.

1 Arianna Fidanza (Astana) ITA 2'13'36
2 Pascale Jeuland (Poitou-Charentes-Futuroscope '86) FRA +st
3 Jip van den Bos (Parkhotel Valkenburg Continental) NED +st
4 Chanella Stougje (Parkhotel Valkenburg Continental) NED +st
5 Mia Radotić (BTC City-Ljubljana) CRO +st
6 Simona Frapporti (Hitec Products) ITA +st
7 Emilie Møberg (Hitec Products) NOR +st
8 Nathalie van Gogh (Parkhotel Valkenburg Continental) NED +st
9 Natalya Saifutdinova (Astana) KAZ +st
10 Xisha Zhao (China Chongming-Liv-Champion System) CHN +st

 

[lemon cheese cake]

Re:

It was a good trip for Parkhotel and they've done well in a variety of races it seems to me. Nice, in Chongming, to see an Asian squad do well too.

Observations on Wiggle:

- Delighted to see Hosking deliver for them. She's often a key cog in the machine but not often #1 sprinter. And she's funny.
- Dani King is becoming a v strong domestique on all terrains, that proven track engine working well. Now heading to California to join the ToC squad, as is Hagiwara.
- Promising Welsh girl Amy Roberts has raced solidly in a much busier program and is getting there. Allez cymru!

Mynd Cymru!


I'm surprised this isn't already up, but 24 teams have been announced for the Giro Rosa:

Alé Cipollini (Ita)
Aromitalia Vaiano (Ita)
Astana Women's Team (Kaz)
Bepink (Ita)
Bizkaia - Durango (Spa)
Boels Dolmans Cyclingteam (Ned)
BTC City Ljubljana (Slo)
Canyon Sram Racing (Ger)
Cervelo Bigla Pro Cycling Team (Ger)
Cylance Pro Cycling (USA)
Hitec Products (Nor)
Inpa - Bianchi (Ita)
Lensworld-Zannata (Bel)
Lointek (Spa)
Lotto Soudal Ladies (Bel)
Poitou-Charentes.Futuroscope.86 (Fra)
Raboliv Womencyclingteam (Ned)
S.C. Michela Fanini (Ita)
Servetto Footon (Ita)
Team Liv-Plantur (Ned)
Top Girls Fassa Bortolo (Ita)
Wiggle High5 (GBr)
Hagens Berman / Supermint Pro Cycling Team (USA)
Xirayas De San Luis (Arg)

Not many surprises personally, apart from Xirayas De San Luis. Parkhotel Valkenburg Continental would have been more of an obvious choice to me.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Yes, I would have thought so, although presumably the more mountainous races are outside of Parkhotel's remit with the main body of their squad (the Jips and Hoeksmas of this world), Solovey's their only real Giro type. Maybe they're more interested in some Dutch/Belgian local races and the Thüringen Rundfahrt to send a full squad? The other thing will be about development and recovery I guess; a lot of their riders are young; more experienced riders have other goals, van Gogh aside; Koedooder will probably be track-focused ahead of the Olympics and de Boer is a 'crosser. While the Italian teams often send riders in their late teens and early 20s to the Giro, Parkhotel don't have the same national interest, and they don't have the same strength in depth as the big teams to not have to include the inexperienced riders in the lineup.

On the plus side, Xirayas AND Alé-Cipollini in the same race will keep plenty of people's rods and cones on alert. And it's good to see Hitec back after they skipped the race last year. With Guderzo being a few years removed from her best performances, and not having the young Italian arm anymore with Ratto and ELB having moved on it's less of a key race to them than it was, but nevertheless they're a good presence to have. Whichever of Kitchen and Wild they take will at least be up in the mix in the flatter and more rolling stages.

 

[Jonhard]

Parkhotel sprang to mind as an omission from the Giro list, just because they've been going well this year, including in the Bira, but it’s fair to say it’s not obviously their bag. Jermaine Post can climb a bit as well as Solovey, but still. And perhaps they have other plans as LS says.

UHC is the other one. Again, not the goatiest of squads and perhaps they have other commitments in the US. I have a vague memory that they were disappointed to miss the Giro last year, but they must have had an invite this time under WWT rules? I'd have said they are a stronger squad than Hagens/Supermint, who will ride.

 

[yaco]

Parkhotel sprang to mind as an omission from the Giro list, just because they've been going well this year, including in the Bira, but it’s fair to say it’s not obviously their bag. Jermaine Post can climb a bit as well as Solovey, but still. And perhaps they have other plans as LS says.

UHC is the other one. Again, not the goatiest of squads and perhaps they have other commitments in the US. I have a vague memory that they were disappointed to miss the Giro last year, but they must have had an invite this time under WWT rules? I'd have said they are a stronger squad than Hagens/Supermint, who will ride.

I'm surprised that Orica-Ais are missing this race - They have riders who could win a stage.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Definitely - everybody who has ever done a decent prologue in their life suddenly sat up and took notice now they know there will be no Annemiek van Vleuten on the startlist.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Of course, what had escaped me is that the Giro Rosa is WWT, which means they must have invited Orica, only for them to decide not to ride. Presumably Aussie Olympic plans play a large role in that, although iirc they had a really good time of it in the Thüringen Rundfahrt last year, Gracie Elvin won the Meerane stage with a long distance solo, dying a thousand deaths on the final time up the Steiler Wand but just holding on. It was glorious.

Anyways - Zhoushan Island finished off, the main result was settled by stage 2 around Shengsi, when a three woman break of Kuchinskaya, Zabelinskaya and Brändli (so a comeback trio!) put three minutes on a group of 15 who in turn put seven minutes on the field. The main names from Chongming lost colossal time, with Fournier and Jip in the 14 minute group, and Ting Ying Huang in the last group of all, nearly 20 minutes back. Fournier had her revenge in the sprint on stage 3, defeating Fidanza and Hoeksma to take the win. BTC City-Ljubljana hoovered up bonus seconds with some choice breakaway moves in order to continue their strong run of results by moving riders up the GC.

Overall:
1 Elena Kuchinskaya (Russia National) RUS 7'01'41
2 Olga Zabelinskaya (BePink-La Classica) RUS +4"
3 Nicole Brändli (Servetto-Footon) SUI +7"
4 Olena Pavlukhina (BTC City-Ljubljana) AZE +3'23"
5 Anna Plichta (BTC City-Ljubljana) POL +3'25"
6 Natalia Boyarskaya (Russia National) RUS +3'27"
7 Pu Yixian (China Chongming-Liv-Champion System) CHN +3'28"
8 Jermaine Post (Parkhotel Valkenburg Continental) NED +3'28"
9 Eugénie Duval (Poitou Charentes-Futuroscope '86) FRA +3'29"
10 Wing Yee Leung (Hong Kong National) HKG +3'30"

Following on from this we had three UCI one-day races in Venezuela, which are the fabled "pop-up" races criticized as late additions to the calendar when the majority of the big teams have already set their plans for the season, to enable nations to fulfil points criteria for sending riders to the Olympics. The first, the Copa Federación Ciclismo de Venezuela, was won by the experienced Brazilian Janildes Fernandes Silva, ahead of Astana's Ingrid Drexel, this time in a Mexican national team, with the local Wilmarys Moreno making up the podium. In the second, the Clásico Corre por la VIDA, a three-woman breakaway took a four minute advantage to the line, with Venezuelan Danielys García beating US-based Mexican Sofia Arreola and Ecuador's Miryan Núñez. Finally, a group of 12 contested the sprint at the GP de Venezuela, with Xirayas' Chilean Paolo Múñoz taking the win ahead of the other Fernandes Silva sister, Clemilda, and Jennifer César - a successful week for the Venezuelans, with three different riders making the podium.

Back in Europe, the three-day National Race of Finland (abbreviated for reasons I don't know to NEA - the Finnish language is not the most intuitive to Indo-European language speakers) took place and even had some online coverage you can see here. Unusual péloton with the Finnish local péloton (no Lotta) supplemented by some national teams including some pretty well-known names (the Spanish one including Ane Santesteban and Anna Sanchis, for example) and some ringers (have race licence will travel - Vita Heine of Hitec and Flavia Oliveira of Lensworld both appeared on local teams). With such a small péloton (only around 50 starters) the race consisted of two ITTs and two road races, with a prologue ITT, a split stage and then a full length rolling circuit to finish. 35-year-old Finn Sari Saareläinen won the prologue fresh off the plane from the Tour of the Gila; her main employers are SC Michela Fanini, but she was entering as a guest just as she did in the States. She narrowly squeezed out similarly experienced compatriot Pia Pensaari and even more experienced (37yo) Israeli Shani Bloch. Ane Santesteban and Vita Heine in 4th and 5th were the first immediately obvious names, 7" back. In the second stage TT of 10km, close to Vantaa airport, Heine took the lead by putting in a stronger showing ahead of Saareläinen and Bloch, with Liisi Rist of the Estonian team (formerly of INPA) behind and with Santesteban, Oliveira and Sanchis all losing close to a minute. The first road stage was comparatively short and ended in a sprint (unsurprisingly given the terrain in much of Finland) with Pensaari beating Heine, who was able to stretch her advantage using the bonus seconds, with the Finnish contingent giving way from the 30+year olds that had made up most of their main contingent to the much younger (21 and 22) Maija Syrjä and Laura Vainionpää. This time the best of the Spaniards was Alicia González, who normally rides for the Basque team Lointek. In the final stage (the one with the full video above), a more rolling course with some slopes to serve as platforms for an attack led to a more broken up race, although race leader Vita Heine (usually of Hitec Products of course, and originally Latvian but now on a Norwegian licence) was able to mark all the moves and take the win ahead of Oliveira and Sanchis, arguably the best riders in the race, with a few seconds over Pensaari, Bloch and then at 9" a group including Santesteban, Rist and Saareläinen, with Waowdeals' Dorleta Eskamendi (formerly of Bizkaia-Durango) stuck in a helplessly lonely position between the splintered lead group and the rest of the bunch at over 6 minutes back. Of course it didn't help that some of the strongest ringers were placed in the same team, although it doesn't sound like there was all that much team spirit given the lack of a common goal.

Eventual GC:
1 Vita Heine (Let's Go Finland) NOR 5'18'58
2 Sari Saareläinen (Let's Go Finland) FIN +29"
3 Shani Bloch (Israel National) ISR +30"
4 Pia Pensaari (Team VeloCycling) FIN +40"
5 Liisi Rist (Estonia National) EST +59"
6 Ane Santesteban González (Spain National) ESP +1'07"
7 Minna-Maria Kangas (Focus Ladies) FIN +1'11"
8 Anna Sanchis Chafer (Spain National) ESP +1'15"
9 Flavia Oliveira (Let's Go Finland) BRA +1'17"
10 Lucía González Blanco (Spain National) ESP +1'44"

 

[Califootman]

It's time for ABFHDWREWS!

Um... you know... the AMGEN Breakaway from Heart Disease Women's Race Empowered with SRAM. Yeah!!

The Women's World Tour graces the shores of North America for the first time, and since the first stage is a 117 km lap around Lake Tahoe those shores just happen to be almost 2000m above sea level! While relatively flat overall, the stage does have a bit of a sting in the tail with the final climb back up to the Heavenly ski resort. With many of the European-based riders still suffering from jet lag and unsure of how they will handle the altitude, the stage win could potentially go to someone outside the 'usual suspects' you might normally flag from the start list.

 

[Jonhard]

Hoping for a good race - there are some moderately big guns appearing.

Hard to pick a winner in this new extended format… it’s high up but there’s not a massive amount of climbing, just a bit on stage 3, there’s a 20k TTT and flat and potentially furious city crit to finish it off. It looks hard for a climber to make the difference GC wise, so probably one for the genuine all-rounder, rouleur or TT specialist.

The other factor is the TTT, which lots of teams don’t do so well. Boels, Rabo and Canyon have the engines and experience but there are certainly US teams who could do something, not least Twenty16 with Armstrong and UHC with Villumsen. Hitec have some power too. Wiggle would like to be in the mix but are down to 5 already with Hagiwara still suffering concussion issues (and no spare riders in the US). Shame as someone like Amy Roberts would have added power to the squad… they have a good line up but not sure how much Mara Abbot can do with this parcours (despite the tremendous form shown at the Gila, where she actually did a tiptop TT).

Boels Dolmans in the box seat for me.

 

[Califootman]

The "Dolmanation" continues in the Women's WorldTour, with U.S. Champion Megan Guarnier taking the win by four seconds in the first stage of the Amgen Breakaway from Heart Disease Women's Race :auses to breathe:: Empowered with SRAM, better known as the Women's Tour of California. Emma Johansson came in second... because Emma Johansson :Vader voice:: IT IS HER DESTINY). American Kristin Armstrong rounded out the podium, coming in ten seconds behind the winner. Evelyn Stevens and Marianne Vos took fourth and fifth, respectively, in the same time as Armstrong.

Finish line and intermediate sprint bonuses put Guarnier up by 10 seconds over Johansson, 18 over Armstrong, and 22 over Stevens and Vos for the GC. Full report is here. Stage 1 highlight video is available under the Replays tab on the Microsoft Tour Tracker.

Today's Stage 2 is a 20km out-and-back Team Time Trial in the town of Folsom.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Not too surprising to see continued Boels success here, given that the long distance to travel has led to some mixed teams between established names and developing young riders for all of the big names - Boels are included in that, but for obvious reasons having two of the biggest all-round American stars in Guarnier and Stevens leaves them in a strong position, although as we all know Emma J is a contender for anything she enters; Wiggle have Mara who will obviously be waiting for the climb to Heavenly Ski Resort to do her thing and, since this is either a US domestic race or the Giro, she'll actually be motivated. Rabo have Vos, Gillow and Brand but have left all the climbers in Europe.

Twenty16 won the TTT, thanks mainly to the power of Kristin Armstrong as she continues her quest for Olympic TT selection, ably assisted by Dygert, Dragoo and Thomas. They only managed 6" over Boels though, so Guarnier keeps her lead. That also gives Boels an extra 19" over UHC, though I don't anticipate them to challenge in the climb, 25" over Rabo, 27" over Canyon whose biggest threat is probably Amialiusik, 49" over TIBCO and most impressively 52" over Wiggle who I'd anticipate will have been hamstrung by Abbott since they finished with 5 riders, she's very weak against the clock and is their likely team leader here. They also had 1'02" over Hitec, although Guderzo becomes less of a threat in the mountains with each passing year, and catastrophically nearly 2 minutes on Cylance, after Ratto did so well in stage 1.

 

[Jonhard]

Sadly Wiggle only started with 5, Hagiwara DNS stage 1. I think it's decent under the circs, with another rider you'd think it would have been top three or four. But looks like any GC hopes, such as they were, are done for now. Canyon were the underachievers for me, but to be fair they haven't had long to acclimatise. Teams that did the Gila look good for it, and Storey mentioned that it had helped her.

UHC did well and i quite fancy Rivera for the Sacramento crit stage.

 

[Califootman]

I thought the USA National Team did pretty well in the Stage 2 TTT considering they only had three riders after half their team either DNF or were OTL in stage 1. They actually had to get approval to take their time at the 3rd rider since it is supposed to be taken at the 4th. They still managed 12th place out of 18 teams!

 

[Califootman]

Women's Tour of California -- Stage Three

Marianne Vos (Rabo Liv) won stage three from a reduced bunch sprint, her first victory in the new Women's WorldTour. It was good to see her get a win here as she's been doing endless interviews and promotional events during her time in California.

Stage 3 Finish

Sunday's final stage is a 20-lap crit in downtown Sacramento. Most of the jersey competitions seem pretty well sewn up at this point. Megan Guarnier (Boels Dolmans), Kristin Armstrong (Twenty16) and Evelyn Stevens (Boels Dolmans) are fairly secure in their final GC podium spots, barring a crash or other unexpected craziness. Mara Abbott (Wiggle High5) locked up the Queen of the Mountains jersey by winning both of the climbs in Stage 3. Chloe Dygert (Twenty16) has a stranglehold on the Best Young Rider jersey, leading that competition by over three minutes. That leaves the green Sprint jersey as the only one still undecided. Overall leader Guarnier is in the driver's seat with 27 points, but Vos and Emma Johansson (Wiggle High5) are tied for second with 21 points. Coryn Rivera (UHC) is in fourth place with 16 points and isn't completely out of the running. There are a maximum of 18 points available during Sunday's stage; 3/2/1 points at the intermediate sprint and 15/12/9/7/6/5/4/3/2/1 points at the finish line. I suppose I'm pulling for Rivera so that we can get another win for a US-based team. My second choice would be Johansson, as that would give her a trifecta of podium spots in this race, and also because, like Vos, she has pulled a lot of ambassador duty during this trip.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I understand why they did it, but a TTT of what is, in women's cycling, fairly serious length, in a short race like this is problematic for the GC, because of course it is almost certain to be won by one of the strongest teams, making it harder to overcome the gaps produced. But mostly I'm just gutted cos it's gonna be Guarnier and not Evie Stevie, my favourite American cyclist, who gets the GC win as a result

Glad to see Marianne able to take something at the WT level again, she's seemingly deliberately steered clear of a lot of the WT events thus far. A bit concerned by the provincial nature of the front group today which will obviously massively affect the GC with those outside the top 25 or so over 5 minutes back - I think the race is improving, but just looking at the stage classification and noting that outside of the obvious top names among extranjeros in the race - Vos, Johansson, Amialiusik - a lot of the front group - over half - are US riders, which with names like Brennauer, Guderzo, Ratto (I'm especially sad about this as she was really good on stage 1, but then Cylance had an awful TTT and I thought she might try something since they're a much more interesting team with Olds out) in a small group at 4 mins, and almost all the Dutch pros coming in +5'23". From the sounds of things Mara did all she could to get away (after all, it's a US domestic race so she actually cares, the female Andy Schleck that she is) but Boels controlled her well.

I would have thought Rivera is one of the favourites for a US-style crit since that's how she made her name, although the fact that she's been trying to become a bit more durable since starting to race in Europe might mean a bit of top end speed has been sacrificed in order to have the chance to compete in more finishes. I notice Guarischi came in with the laughing group today and has had a quiet season thus far, but there aren't many "pure" type sprinters in this bunch, so Coryn will likely be competing against a similar kind of field to the one she did today, plus the likes of Lisa Brennauer if she's up for the sprint, Kirsten Wild or Lauren Kitchen depending on Hitec's plan, and Hannah Barnes who has a bunch of US crit wins from when she was Rivera's teammate at UHC.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

In the end Kirsten Wild took it, because hard flat racing is what she likes most. Obviously it was fairly tough pace out there, as her win was ahead of Brennauer and Vos, with Rivera fourth and Amy Pieters 5th, so it seems very much like a European-styled flat circuit race rather than the often less gritty American crits, which often have wider open roads and less road furniture so seem to have more focus on positioning and pace.

As an entirely predictable result of this, Megan Guarnier keeps the overall ahead of Armstrong and teammate Stevens. Timegaps not fully clear as they've been off the side of the photo of the timing sheet that the Boels team posted on Twitter, but these are the ones we have so far, and at least for WT points we can confirm the top 10:

1 Megan Guarnier (Boels-Dolmans) USA
2 Kristin Armstrong (Twenty16) USA +17"
3 Evelyn Stevens (Boels-Dolmans) USA +25"
4 Marianne Vos (Rabo-Liv) NED +37"
5 Coryn Rivera (United Healthcare) USA +44"
6 Leah Thomas (Twenty16) USA +44"
7 Chloë Dygert (Twenty16) USA +44"
8 Katharine Hall (United Healthcare) USA +1'01"
9 Emma Johansson (Wiggle-High5) SWE +1'02"
10 Lauren Stephens (TIBCO-SVB) USA +1'25"

My point on the TTT rather unfortunately stands, as this race had a pretty good startlist but seems to have been quite a provincial affair with the upper echelons of the GC dominated by the local teams for whom this is seemingly much more important than for the Rabos and Wiggles of this world (Boels of course have two high profile American riders for whom this would be a likely target); Vos aside, Rabo left their main points-scorers in Europe, and Wiggle obviously have Abbott as well, but a disappointing TTT plus, you know, Abbott being a completely one-dimensional rider rather handicaps them on the multi-dimensional threat front. It's also the first race of the Women's World Tour to see one nation lock out the podium. I appreciate that somewhat like the men's Tour of California it's hamstrung by being in a position in the calendar where the Classics-focused women are either taking a break (e.g. Armitstead) or on relatively low form, and the major stage racers are not yet preparing to peak with June and July offering their time to shine, but still, the effect the TTT has had on the GC rather harms the perception of the race, which is well organized and nicely put together, an improvement on the days of the standalone ITT, although that was nice in its own way before the full stage race was implemented.

It does mean that Guarnier now takes the lead of the World Tour. I'm not sure where Blaak finished in the GC to know if Boels have been able to defend their lockout of the top three in the World Tour from Emma J. The youth classification can't mathematically change until the Aviva Women's Tour since neither Floortje nor Jip were in action, I think Alexis Ryan will have gained 6 points for Cali, but probably needs to take another maximum in Philadelphia to make things interesting as at the moment Kasia is two whole race maximums ahead of anybody else, having only entered four WWT races but been the best U23 in all of them.

Back in Europe, we had the SwissEver GP Cham, a flat one-day race which was won by Lotta Lepistö for Cervélo. Her main opposition came from a French national team which, to all intents and purposes, was Poitou Charentes-Futuroscope '86, with all but one rider drawn from that squad. Roxane Fournier was second and Orica's Sarah Roy third. Pascale Jeuland and Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio round out the top 5.

Over in Venezuela, the Cubans qualified a rider for the Olympic road race by doing a 1-2 in the Pan-American Games RR, with Iraida García and Arlenis Sierra winning from a select group of 10 ahead of Euro pros Flavia Oliveira for Brazil and Ingrid Drexel for Mexico.

 

[Califootman]

The AMGEN Breakaway from... hold on.
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Sponsorese: AMGEN Breakaway from Heart Disease Women's Race Empowered with SRAM

English: Women's Tour of California
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Okay, the Women's Tour of California Recap Show will air on NBCSN tonight (Thursday, 26 May) at 10:30pm Pacific Daylight Time, which technically counts as starting in prime time out here on the west coast. Woohoo! Of course, the Penguins/Lightning NHL playoff Game 7 will probably end up going to quadruple overtime and bump this completely off the schedule, but if not we'll be fortunate enough to feast on a full 90 minutes of highlights, interviews and... well... who knows what else (Phil and Paul sharing their extensive knowledge of women's cycling? Let's hope not!) from the most recent Women's WorldTour event. So call your friends, invite the neighbors over, and pop some popcorn in anticipation of what I guarantee will be the best highlight show of the year for a North American Women's WorldTour stage race.

 

[Jonhard]

^^

Back to Europe for three races in the next few days, the Boels Hills Classic and La Classique Morbihan tomorrow and the GP Plumelec-Morbihan on Sunday.

The Hills Classic has the better field by some distance, albeit diminished by the absence of the riders who have stayed in the US pending the Philly Classic next weekend. Still, we have Lizzie, Marianne and Emma (all former winners - and a plausible podium order?) and strong teams from Bigla, Orica, Hitec and Liv.

In truth Wiggle have a semi-devo team and only five, so Emma will do well to podium. There are stronger teams and some big names in the race, including former winners van Vleuten and Moolman. Startlijst (provisional):

http://www.cyclingfever.com/editie.html?detp=view&_ap=startlijst&editie_idd=MjcwMzA=

The Morbihan/GP Plumelec combo features much the same lineup in each. There are no big teams but some decent national squads from Straya (Neylan), France (Delzenne, Cordon) and Spain (Santesteban, Sanchis). Majerus rides for Luxembourg and can't be ruled out either. Morbihan provisional starters ici:

http://www.cyclingfever.com/editie.html?detp=view&_ap=startlijst&editie_idd=MjcwMjk=

In another part of the forest, the Dutch have picked Annemiek vV over Chantal Blaak for Rio. They're spoilt for choice but that's a tough call. Blaaki has been awesome this year.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

For the Rio course however, I think it's the right call. Chantal will be more of a threat in Qatar than Brazil. Also with the need for the riders in the time trial to do the road race it also gives the Netherlands a third bullet in the gun since presumably you'd expect Ellen van Dijk and Anna VDB to be their two TT entrants, but if Annemiek The Prologue Queen is in better form they've got that additional bullet in the gun. Although the Rio Olympics won't have the 9258 pieces of road furniture that typically make up a Dutch prologue.