Stage 7b – 11 July 2003 – 44km

After another meal of pasta (what else would we eat day after day in Italy) we headed to the 7km circuit in Cento and rode a warm up lap in the 38C heat.  We were all dripping with sweat from the heat and from the thought of riding such a technical circuit at high speed.  The circuit had 11 corners, 2 sections of cobble stones, a narrow archway, several divided sections of road with the median to avoid and 2 climbs.  Granted the climbs weren’t steep, but after reviewing the race bible which showed zero elevation it was another unpleasant surprise for the day.

I spoke to our Director before the race and mentioned that I would love to get in a break today and it was certainly a circuit where a break could stay away.  It was so technical that a break would be quicker than the peloton.  So I moved to the front during the first 2km, saw a girl to attack and dived off the front after her.  Soon there were 4 of us working hard to get away from the peloton.  The other girls were strong, pulling turns at 48km/hr and I was red lining it just to hang in there.  I pulled as many turns as I could and desperately radioed back to Meredith (Team SATS) to find out if the peloton were interested in chasing.  I was hoping we were putting time into the group and could maybe ease the pace a little.  After 2 laps, our time gap was being closed and soon into the 3rd lap we were absorbed.  I sat in for a while to recover and then started at looking at another opportunity.  Meredith and I were covering a few attacks but everything was being chased down.

On the first gradual hill on the 4th lap, a few girls attacked with Meredith and I both there.  Over the hill, they opened a gap in front of us and started driving hard.  Before the gap opened to far, Meredith sprinted from the peloton and drove hard towards the break away, with one girl on her wheel.  I sat on the front of the peloton, prayed that no-one else would follow Meredith and hoped that most of the major teams had a rider represented in the break.  And indeed this was the case which was a perfect situation for us so we sat on the front of the peloton and eased up the pace in order to lengthen the time gap to the break.

With one lap to go, the break had over 1 minute on us so they were guaranteed to stay away.  As the break approached the final cobble stone section (with 1km to go), where the finish line was located, Meredith jumped hard and almost held them off for her first stage win, but with 10m to go, two riders just edged past her.  Her third place in the Giro, however, was another awesome result for Team SATS and we were delighted to be on the podium again.