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Emilia Fahlin and Jeff Louder win Redlands criterium
BMC's Jeff Louder wins men's; GC unchanged
Emilia Fahlin (Team High Road) and Jeff Louder (BMC) won Saturday’s 1st Centennial Bank-KWB Wealth Managers Criterium, the second stage of the 2008 Redlands Classic in California.
Fahlin, a 19-year-old Swede, took the bunch sprint ahead of a hard-driving women’s peloton in Saturday’s 1st Centennial Bank-KWB Wealth Managers Criterium. Hot on her wheel was Canadian Alex Wrubleski (Webcor Builders) and Advil-Chapstick’s Brenda Lyons.
In the women’s GC, there was only one slight change, as Wrubleski traded third for second place with Katharine Carroll (Aaron’s), whose sixth place in the criterium kept her out of contention for sprinter’s points. Wrubleski is now in the sprinter’s jersey. High Road’s Mara Abbott remains in the leader’s jersey.
In the men’s race, Louder, known for his climbing skills, perhaps surprised no one more than himself when an early-race break stuck, propelling him across the line for the win just ahead of Cuban Luis Alberto Amaran (Colavita-Sutter Home). Toyota-United’s Ivan Dominguez won the bunch sprint to take third place.
There were no changes in the men’s GC, as the top three are still Santiago Botero (Rock Racing), Chris Baldwin (Toyota-United), and Francois Parisian (Symmetrics).
Women
From the first of 26 laps around the 1.6km technical nine-turn course, the most powerful women’s teams were seen on the front of the field, often coming across the start/finish line with attacks coming from both sides of the road simultaneously. The colors of Webcor Builders, Aaron’s, ValueAct Capital, Cheerwine, Colavita-Sutter Home, and leader Abbott’s Team High Road were consistently well-represented.
On the fourth lap, Canadian national time trial champion Anne Samplonius (Cheerwine) attacked and was able to hold off the charging field for five laps with a small gap before being reabsorbed. Samplonius’ break turned out to be one of the longest of the day. While a number of other riders would break away temporarily, teams placed high in the GC took turns at the front reeling them back in. Webcor Builder’s Amy Dombroski, Cheerwine’s Laura Van Gilder, and Advil-Chapstick’s Anna Milkowski were a few of the women who emerged from the pack briefly in front of the large crowds at the start-finish line.
“We wanted to have an aggressive race,” Wrubleski said, “and try and get the time bonus and sprint bonus, and, if possible, get in a break with me or Christine [Thorburn] up there … It was really fast, though, so it didn’t seem like any of them were going to stay away.”
Thorburn, who just six weeks ago suffered three broken ribs in a crash in Australia and is just now “starting to be able to breathe deeply and do a little bit of high intensity,” came up shorter in the sprint finish than she’d hoped, but still finished sixth. She was thrilled with her team’s effort in the race. “Our team was fantastic … Gina did a fantastic job almost taking Alex all the way to the line.”
While it was obvious that many teams were shooting for the stage win, including Cheerwine, which took decisive control at the front of the race with five laps remaining, ironically, Fahlin hadn’t been.
“It wasn’t really our plan to go for a stage win, as we were more concerned about the time bonuses and keeping Mara in a good position going into the final stage,” she said. “But it ended up in a bunch sprint so I had to go for it to try to take the bonus seconds.” At the end of two months of racing in California, this is the Swede’s fourth victory here, and is apparently the sweetest. “For me, it’s really exciting. It’s my biggest win so far.”
For some the day ended on a much less positive note. The fast pace of the women’s race, coupled with several crashes, took a toll on the field, with 13 women listed as DNF.
Men
In the men’s race, a break did stick. Just about 30 minutes into the 90-minute race, Luis Alberto Amaran (Colavita-Sutter Home) attacked. Speaking with team director Sebastian Alexandre serving as interpreter, Amaran said, “The idea was to try to create a breakaway. I saw the opportunity, and then I attacked and waited for somebody to join me.”
Once Amaran was off the front, GC leader Botero’s Rock Racing team took control at the front of the peloton.
“We had 54 seconds on second place, so we had a little bit more freedom to let a break go up the road,” teammate Tyler Hamilton said, recalling Oscar Sevilla’s one-second loss at last week’s San Dimas stage race. “And this time, we did keep it in check and we kept it under control.”
A number of teams tried unsuccessfully to bridge to Amaran, including Kelly Benefit Strategies-Medifast, the team of defending Redlands champ Andy Bajadali.
“We were shooting to get Alex [Candelario] or the Baj' in the breakaway, one of those two guys,” director Jonas Carney said. “Rock did not want to let Baj' go. They were concerned about Baj', apparently for general classification, so as soon as he moved, they brought him back right away.” Candelario and Reid Mumford also tried, but Carney said, “We missed the move [the initial break], and then it was just too big of a gap to bridge someone.”
After roughly 10 laps of working on his own, Amaran received the help he’d hoped for: Curtis Gunn (SuccessfulLiving.com), Shawn Milne (Team Type 1), and Jeff Louder (BMC) eventually bridged the gap. While Rock Racing continued to drive the pace of the field behind them, as the margin widened to almost 40 seconds, teams like Kelly Benefit Strategies-Medifast, Toyota-United, and Health Net-Maxxis, all took turns at the front, trying to decrease the gap.
But the attack launched by Amaran just 30 minutes into the race would prevail. However, only two of the four men in the break made it across the line before the bunch sprint. Gunn said that Milne tried to “come on the inside [in the second to last corner before the finish] and kinda got squeezed out. I think they may have overlapped wheels, and he went over the handlebars.”
Gunn was behind Milne at that point, and when he tried to pass him on the outside, he went right into the barriers. “Dumb luck,” he said.
Both Gunn and Milne finished, but only after becoming pack fodder. Gunn sustained serious road rash, while Milne broke his wrist, the third on his team to do so this season.
Meanwhile, Louder, a rider known for his climbing abilities, made it around the last few corners first, and took the sprint ahead of Amaran. Having decided that Amaran was taking corners more quickly than him, Louder realized that if he were going to win the stage, he needed to come around the final few corners first.
“I came through the last corner first and just motored for home,” he said. “I was a little surprised to not see him come around me. I think everyone had worked pretty hard in the break, and we were pretty evenly matched in the long run. Maybe he’d spent a little more than I had because he’d been away a bit longer.”
After the previous day’s stage, Louder felt the stage win was vindication. “I was attacking yesterday, and I felt really, really good,” he said. “I almost feel like I set up that breakaway yesterday, and then I missed it … I pretty much caused the initial split, and then those guys split from that. I hesitated … so I really wanted to redeem myself and help to redeem the team.”
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