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Haedo and Broun take Nature Valley criterium
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Colavita’s Sebastien Haedo and Kristy Broun (Riverstone CDA) raced to victory in Stage 2 of the 2009 Nature Valley GP on Wednesday in the Downtown St. Paul Criterium.
With plenty of fast action on the streets of St. Paul, the evening criteriums did not have a significant impact on the overall standings, with Bissel’s Tom Zirbel and Cervélo’s Kristen Armstrong holding the overall leads they first established in the opening time trial on Wednesday morning.
A year after heavy rains cancelled the men’s race and nullified the General Classification gains from the women’s race, the opening criterium of the Nature Valley GP enjoyed fair weather, sunny skies and dry roads. Large crowds lined the course and spurred the racers on.
The race was the first of three criteriums during the six-stage race and the sprinters had their first chance to show their stuff. The course covered one kilometer of city streets in the heart of Minnesota’s state capital. The four-corner course in the Lowertown District featured wide-open corners and a steady incline up the back side of the course ─ a seemingly mellow introduction ahead of the technical and challenging criteriums later in the week. But the open corners also meant high speeds and aggressive racing, making the event look anything but easy.
Colavita’s at home on the crit’ course
Haedo’s Colavita team put on an exhibition in flawless criterium racing, successfully reeling in the day’s break and delivering their ace to the line for the win. Haedo reaped the rewards of Colavita’s perfect setup and delivered the win.
“The team worked well all day,” Haedo said. “With three laps to go, we decided to do the lead out.”
Tom Soladay (Mountain Khakis) earned second place the hard way, working in a four-man break for nearly the entire day, only to be nipped in the closing meters by Haedo.
“This is my bread-and-butter,” Soladay said after his huge effort. “In the last meters, I was just pedaling out of pure anger. I wanted this in a bad way.” Soladay earned the Wheaties Sprint jersey as a reward for his hard work.
Rounding out the podium was Haedo’s teammate Alejandro Borrajo.
The men’s race had the pedal to the metal from the gun as Colavita, Ouch and others took their best shots at Zirbel’s grip on the leader’s jersey.
A four-man group quickly formed off the front and began to work together to increase the advantage over the field. Soladay, along with Will Routley (Jelly Belly), Tyler Wren (Colavita) and Adam Bergman (Texas Roadhouse) extended their lead over the Bissel-led peloton, but were never able to get more than about 30 seconds ahead.
Zirbel’s Bissel squad seemed content to let the break dangle just off the front of the pack. With just a 13-second lead on GC and plenty of time bonuses available on the road, the team saw an opportunity to let riders a bit further down on GC take all the intermediate GC sprint bonuses along the way.
“OUCH had to bring the break back,” Zirbel said. “In order to get the jersey today, they had to work for the time bonuses.”
In the end it was Colavita that worked to bring back the break in the closing laps, despite having a rider in the breakaway.
“We wanted to have a guy on the team win,” said Colavita director Sebastien Alexandre. “As soon as we got within 10 seconds of the break, we decided to go."
Watch Armstrong
Kristy Broun (Riverstone CDA) won the Saint Paul Criterium in a speedy bunch sprint. Broun leapt out of the final corner and held her gap all the way to the line with enough time to put up her arms in celebration. Joanne Kiesanowski (TIBCO) and Gina Grain (Webcor Builders) filled the other podium spots in second and third, respectively.
“I knew (Armstrong) was going to drive the race and try to get away, and we had a really strong team so we just stayed near her,” said the Australian stage winner. “I just tested my legs out in a couple of the intermediate sprints. I knew I had to go before the last corner.”
The women’s race started at a blistering pace, largely thanks to Olympic time trial champion and race leader, Kristin Armstrong. Last year Armstrong lapped the field in the Lowertown Saint Paul criterium, so the other teams gave her no room to try again.
“I stuck to Webcor and Colavita. We all tried to work together to keep Kristin under wraps,” said Broun.
The pace remained high throughout, as Armstrong used her world-class time trialing abilities to string this out from the front to stay out of trouble. TIBCO, Webcor, and Colavita also contributed to the high pace, but they preferred to send women on the attack. However no group was ever able to maintain any significant lead over the frenzied peloton.
The big teams were in pursuit of the time bonuses at the intermediate sprints, hoping on one hand to move their top riders closer to Armstrong, and on the other to defend their advantages over other rivals.
“It was my job to work for every time bonus sprint to keep them from the other teams,” said Grain, who is more than a minute out of the overall lead. “We had riders in the top 10 of the GC and we knew others’ teams would be going for those time bonuses too.”
In the end a field sprint was the order of the day and there were no major changes in GC. However, with her successes on Wednesday night, stage winner Broun took hold of the lead in the Wheaties Sprint competition and earned the jersey for the Freewheel Most Aggressive Rider.
Riders will tackle the first road race of the 2009 Nature Valley GP on Stage 3 on Thursday in the 66 mile Cannon Falls Road Race.
