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Tecos sweeps Bisbee podium; McDonald claims women's crown
In probably the most dominant team showing since the revival of La Vuelta de Bisbee, Team Tecos from Mexico swept the top four spots in the final stage to push Colombian Gregorio Vega to a wire-to-wire victory.
Vega donned the yellow jersey following Friday’s prologue and wore it all weekend, beating teammates Fausto Muñoz, Carlos Guinez and Francisco Navarro, who finished second through fourth in the overall.
Muñoz called it a victory for the entire team and said Vega became their horse to bet on after his performance in Friday’s time trial, the same climb from Old Bisbee to the top of the Mule Pass Tunnel that concluded Sunday’s final stage race.
“It depends on what’s going to happen in the race,” Muñoz said as to how the team chooses its leader. “(Vega) won the prologue, so we worked for him. ... We never worried. The whole team was working for Gregorio — working for our leader.”
Vega’s top challenger heading into the final stage was 21-year-old Kiel Reijnen (Waste Management), who entered Sunday’s 83-mile Tombstone Road Race in third. With nine teammates backing him, he was the only real threat to a Vega win.
That threat, however was dashed when Reijnen was part of a crash outside of Tombstone that took out at least three riders. According to reports, Reijnen got back on his bike. He rode for a couple hundred meters before falling to the ground once more, writhing and screaming in pain. Medical professionals responded and Reijnen did not continue.
With Reijnen no longer in the hunt, the lone American challengers were Adam Livingston and Karl Bordine from Team 5 Star WVO, who finished fifth and sixth, respectively, but came nowhere near cracking the Tecos cocoon around Vega.
So confident was Team Tecos, they chose which among them would win the stage long before the final climb.
“With 20 miles left in the race, we decided Francisco Navarro would win,” Muñoz said.
Navarro wound up winning the stage by less than a second.
Vega, who grew up cycling in the mountains of Colombia, is the prototypical South American racer.
“In South America the mountains are more hard,” Vega said through Muñoz’s translation. “So being king of the mountain is very difficult. There, everybody climbs faster. (In the United States) the time trials are more fast than in South America.”
Muñoz said Tecos plans to have a team return next year.
“We really like this race,” Muñoz said. “We’re so happy because we won. But we like this course, there’s beautiful weather here — it’s better than Mexico.”
In women’s racing, Kelly McDonald of California-based Touchstone Climbing won by 27 seconds over Chloe Forsman (Luna).
Forsman, a Tucsonan who took the yellow jersey Friday after winning the prologue, rode the same climb to victory in Sunday’s Tombstone Road Race, but her 12-second margin of victory was not nearly enough.
“I attacked right before we went into the tunnel, which might not have been the smartest strategy,” Forsman said. “I just put my head down and went for it and up the steepest part of the climb, Kelly and I pulled away.”
The Morgan Stanley Team duo of Michael Buckley and Michael Hutchinson finished first and second, respectively, in the men’s masters’ race. Matthew Novakovich of Team Alaska Cannon finished third.
