Stage 4 – Sunset Road Race – 100km

Quark Cycling Team News Release

Ina Teutenberg made it two in a row winning the Sunset road race today concluding the Redlands Progel bicycle classic.

The race had drama and excitement from the start as the top three places on GC were separated by only 7 seconds. To make things even tougher on the tired field was the fact that the first KOM came just 7 miles into the race with time in addition to points given. Webcor’s Erinne Willock drove the pace hard right as the flag dropped. She was assisted by T-Mobile’s Teutenberg and Quark’s Grace Fleury.

As the KOM approached Genevieve Jeanson was first to jump shadowed by Annette Beutler of Quark but the efforts of Webcor’s tandem of Christine Thorburn and Willock powered by to take 1 and 2 and the bonus seconds attached with Quark’s Beutler third picking up 1 second.  This gave Thorburn a 7 second advantage over T-Mobile Kim Baldwin and 8 seconds over Quark’s Beutler.  The chase for bonus seconds on the KOM split the field and a group containing Thorburn, Willock, Baldwin and Armstrong of T-mobile as well as Quarks Beutler and Monex rider Lynn Gaggioli formed an early break. T-Mobile and Gaggioli drove the pace and the break maintaining a lead of about a minute and a half.

Quark was unhappy about having Beutler in the break without any team mates so Laura, Helen and Grace pulled hard turns to close the gap. After 4 laps away the efforts of Quark was able to bring the gap down to 15 seconds as riders then attempted to bridge the gap to the leaders.  Teutenberg of T-Mobile was the only rider to make the jump and she then attacked the breakaway going solo. As Teutenberg was no threat on GC, Webcor and Quark and the GC riders of T-Mobile concentrated on watching each other and the chess game began.

After another hard lap of chasing by Quark, the field caught the break as Teutenberg continued to power away solo.

At the finish Teutenberg came across the line 57 seconds ahead of the field making it two in a row for the German.  But all heads stayed glued to the finishing stretch to see how the final GC would be determined. First around the finishing corner was Quark’s Beutler followed by teammate Tina Pic. Amy Moore of Victory Brewing came across the line for forth with a small gap to the yellow jersey clad Thorburn. Beutler picked up 6 seconds for her 2nd place and so the final GC would all depend on whether the officials deemed the gap to be big enough to give Thornburn a slower finishing time than Beutler.

In the end Thorburn’s last huge effort in the closing meters was enough to earn her the right to pull the final yellow jersey over her head, with Beutler 2 seconds behind, followed by Baldwin 13 seconds behind. In the team competition, Quark finished 3rd behind T-Mobile, while Quark’s Beutler went home in red for also winning the climbers competition.

1 Ina Teutenberg  ( T-Mobile)                          2:35:07

2 Annette Beutler Quark Cycling Team              @ :57

3 Tina Pic   Quark Cycling Team

Final GC

1 Christine Thorburn Webcor                      8:02:19

2 Annette Beutler  Quark Cycling Team                 @ :02

3 Kim Baldwin  T-Mobile                              @ :13

4 Erinne Willock                                  @  :44

5 Kristen Armstrong                              @  1:03

6 Tina Pic Quark Cycling Team                         @  1:34

18 Grace Fleury (Quark)
31 Helen Kelly (Quark)
44 Laura Van Gilder (Quark)

World Championships – Madrid, 2005

Australian Worlds Team: Oenone Wood, Nat Bates, Helen kelly, Oliver Gollan, Sarah Carrigan, Kate Bates

Well – all the hard hours of training were worth it. As many of you know I rode in the aussie team at the World Championships in Madrid last month. And after a great team effort, the aussie girls came away with a bronze medal.

So briefly, here is what happened.

We kicked off our race at 9am, not long after the sun came up. It was already 25C but the wind was still calm. The pace was on right from the start and I thought my lungs were going to explode on lap 1. I listened to Wazza (Australian director) telling us in the radio to float through the corners and relax our breathing – My legs didn’t feel like they were doing very much floating!!

The course was technical and narrow in places and it was more undulating than the course profile showed. It was a 126km race consisting of 6 laps of a 21km loop through the heart of Madrid. There were two significant climbs per lap as well as a number of gradual rise that really stung the legs. The initial prediction of a huge bunch sprint certainly didn’t happen with many world class riders, not there at the finish.

Each lap was just as fast as the previous one and luckily I had good legs and felt strong at our 41km/hr average speed. On lap 3, I jumped on Maglie LeFloch (France) who tried to head up the road alone. A few riders came with me, but within a minute everything had regrouped. Fellow aussie Olivia Gollan, countered, with a brilliant attack but her 15sec gap was quickly closed.

On lap 4 and after nearly 80km, I had nothing left to give. Racing in her home country, Joanne Somariba (Spain) launched a huge attack at the base of the first climb which strung things out and eventually on the second climb, shelled many riders, including myself.

On lap 5, Sara Carrigan, Kate and Nat Bates took over patrolling the front and covering anything dangerous, while Olivia continued to try some opportunity moves.

At the finish, 23 of the worlds best cyclists were fighting for the World Champion title. Olivia gave her last amount of energy to get Oenone Wood into position. From the final corner, at 600m to go, Oenone used the German train to set herself up for the sprint. Oenone crossed the line 3rd, behind Regina Scheiler (Germany) and Nicole Cooke (Great Britain).

It has been a rewarding but difficult year for me. The sad loss of my friend Amy has made me sit back and think about what is really important in life. Her passion for success was inspirational and I can only hope to emulate her strength and happiness for life.

Now, I am back home and enjoying life in Australia. It is so wonderful to be the same country as Bob and to see my family again. Spending time apart makes the time together, all the more special. I hope to catch up with many of my aussie friends over the coming weeks as I juggle the demands of outstanding tax returns, a month of auditing at KPMG and my training for Commonwealth Games selection.