GP Cham – Hagendorn Road Race, Switzerland

20 May 2006

Today is my first ever win in Europe! I won a Swiss national road race held in Cham, north of Luzern, called the GP Cham-Hagendorn,  Here is what happened:

Yesterday, my two Elk Haus NÖ team mates, (Annette Beutler, Patricia Schwager) and I, decided to attend this race as good preparation for the Montreal world cup next week.  This was the first road race on the Swiss National calendar.

With many teams in France racing the Tour de l’Aude, we were pleasantly surprised to see World Cup Leader Nicole Cooke (Univega) and two of her team mates on the start line.  Bigla cycling team had 5 girls racing, Team Rothaus – Vita Classica (Germany) had 4 riders while Team Stevens (Switzerland) and our team, Elk Haus NÖ, had 3 riders each.  The rest of the field was made up of individual riders.

The race was only 73km (9.3km x 8 laps) which is very short for a women’s race so I warmed up well, anticipating it would be fast from the start.  Each lap was 9km in length and had two climbs.  The first climb was 1.5km long while the second was 700m.  The last 2km before the finish and 1km after the finish had some short power climbs, fast descents and many corner. In our warm up, I knew this would be a good place to attack the field.

With 5 riders from their team, Bigla dictated the front of the race in the first two laps.  They drove it fast up the climbs on lap 2 and my legs felt the speed of the climb.  As we approached lap 3, I was given instructions via the race radio to make it fast to the base of the climb.  I rode hard through the start/finish and opened up a gap on the field.  A Bigla and Team Stevens rider got across to me but wouldn’t work. I let them sit on and kept going hard to the climb to string out the peloton.

Noemi Cantele and Andrea Knecht (Bigla) drove it hard up the climb and this split the peloton.  Both my team mates got over in the front group, along with Brigitte Sollner (Team Stevens) and Nicole Cooke (Univega). I got over the climb 15sec later with Ellen Heiny (Team Rothaus-Vita Classica) and we chased together and got across to the front group.  We were really happy to have Cooke isolated from her Univega team mates and to have 3 Elk Haus riders in the front group.  Bigla realising that they were outnumbered, started attacking but after Schwager (Elk Haus NÖ) closed the gap an attack, I counter-attacked.

Both Cooke (Univega) and Bigla didn’t react to my attack.  They all waited for someone else to start chasing so whilst they looked at one, I disappeared up the road.  I put my head down and time trialled.  With 45km to go, I wasn’t expecting to ride solo to the finish.  The peloton regrouped during lap 6 but everyone still refused to co-operate and do any organised chasing.

My gap to the field stayed around 1min 20sec until the last lap when Bigla attacked up the climb.  Brigitte Söllner (Team Stevens Switzerland), Noemi Cantele (Bigla) and my team mate Beutler crested the climb ahead of the peloton.  They closed the gap to 1min but I only had 3km to go and was confident they wouldn’t catch me.  I pedalled hard until 500m to go, and then knew for sure that I had won.  I sat up, held my hands up high and rolled across the finish, thoroughly enjoying the victory.

Tomorrow I am off to Montreal, so more news soon from Canada. Ciao.

Statistics

Distance – 74.4km (8 x 9.3km circuit)
Time – 2hrs 01min 57sec
Average speed – 36.6 km/hr

1^st – Helen Kelly (Elk Haus NÖ)
2^nd – Noemi Cantele (Bigla Cycling Team)
3^rd – Annette Beutler (Elk Haus NÖ)