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San Francisco Twilight Criterium
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| 9/13/2008 |
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But the night belonged to Proman Professional Cycling Team's Shelley Olds. Throughout the course of the race, several breakaways threatened to permanently split the field of 58 riders. Kat Carroll of the Aaron's squad put in one aggressive effort after another in the hopes of putting the race away early. With only six laps left to go Carroll made one last effort that brought Van Gilder, her teammate Sarah Bamberger, Christine Thorburn and Chrissy Ruiter (ValueAct) along with her. Carroll attacked again and put 15 seconds between her and the other members of the momentary break and an entire 40 seconds on the peloton.
In the end, however, the field all came altogether with two laps remaining and Olds pulled off the formidable task of besting not only Van Gilder, but Series leader Kelly Benjamin (Cheerwine) for the lion's share of the $5,000 purse.
"Laura Van Gilder attacked on the top of the hill and I just stuck on her wheel," Olds said afterwards of the finish. "It was great to have a wheel right here; it was really windy. I grabbed her wheel and made it around her."
With San Francisco now behind them, Toshiba-Santo's rider Yosvany Falcon still retains a slight edge in the men's overall competition over Time's Adam Myerson, while Kelly Benjamin's lead over Vanderkitten's Jennifer Wilson is equally thin in the women's overall.
Vanderkitten can console itself with its 149-point lead over Cheerwine in the women's team competition. That is not the case, however, in the men's team competition, where Toshiba only maintains a 44-point lead over Time Pro Cycling.
In the laps-lead competition, Toshiba Mark Hekman holds a two-lap advantage over Colavita-Sutter Home's Kyle Wamsley, while Kat Carroll will most certainly win the women's side of that competition with only one event remaining
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Tour of Missouri Women's Criterium
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| 9/10/2008 |
The newly crowned USA national criterium and road champion, Brooke Miller of Team Tibco, felt the added motivation from her stars and stripes skin suit, fuelling her winning sprint ahead of Jen McRae (Advil-ChapStick) and Erica Allar (Aaron's).
"It was such a great race out there, so much more fun when people come out to race their bikes," said Miller who acknowledged her team's small numbers. "It's fun to come out with only three riders and come out and race tactically well. Ambar Rais and Lauren Franges were flawless."
Some sixty women lined up to start the Tour of Missouri women's criterium. The inaugural event held in Kansas City in conjunction with the men's stage one finish. The pro women competed for one-hour over a one-kilometre rendition of the men's five-kilometre finishing circuits.
"I'm such a sucker for a good crowd They were great," said Miller regarding the thousands of fans out to watch the race despite less than desirable weather conditions. "It was very aggressive out there from the beginning and I get giddy with good hard races."
Teams like Cheerwine, Aaron's, Value Act Capital, Vanderkitten and Colavita-Sutter Home along with single rider teams Revolution and Kenda Tire played hardball with one another.
The continued to send a flurry of attacks for the duration of the one-hour event however, strong winds, especially a headwind through the start finish line, forced the field to continuously regroup.
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