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O'Bee and Pic score wins at Nature Valley
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In 2007, Kirk O’Bee and his HealthNet-Maxxis team dominated the Nature Valley Grand Prix, with one exception: the final overall standings. Last year, the men in green and black won four of five stages and enjoyed the leader's jersey for two days, but could not wrestle the final GC from the grip of Toyota-United’s Ivan Stevic.
This year, O’Bee got off to a good start, winning the 65-mile second stage in a sprint – just as he had done a year ago - but this time he pulled on the leader’s yellow jersey afterward.
Unlike last year, however, Thursday’s ride through the rolling prairies of Southern Minnesota, starting and finishing in the river town of Cannon Falls, was effectively the beginning of the GC, as stage 1 was nullified by bad weather and a nasty crash by the lead motorcycle.
Light breezes, mellow temperatures, and sunny skies made for a lazy day in the saddle on Thursday. Kelly Benefits Strategies’ Alex Candelario said the day was marked by “negative racing,” featuring a handful of half-hearted individual attacks that were quickly re-absorbed.
Competitive teams’ hope for extreme wind or weather on this relatively flat stage; otherwise, it’s strictly a sprinter’s delight. A mild day means a charge at the line, and that’s precisely what happened.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the day was that Toyota-United did not offer a strong defense of the title. Chris Wherry led a tentative attack early in the stage, but the team seemed to disappear into the woodwork soon after. Perhaps the squad was demoralized by a crash that took Dominique Rollin down at mile 42. Stevic would flash his colors late in the race, but only for a moment.
The field regrouped for the final run back into Cannon Falls where a five trips around a one-mile circuit awaited them. Before that, the return to Cannon Falls was marked by a unique 1-mile section of steeply descending dirt road. It was there that locally based Kelly Benefit Strategies pushed to the front in the hope of splitting the field. But the dirt was too soft and the peloton too determined. Though strung out, all riders were accounted for and present. From that point on, HealthNet-Maxxis controlled the closing miles of the race.
The finishing circuit ended in a 100-meter rise on smooth grey pavement that topped out at 20 meters beyond the line. HealthNet controlled the last three laps with a show of force on front: Phil Zajicek, Romun Kilun, Matt Krane and Tim Johnson formed a flying wedge. Stevic attached himself, but in the final sprint he was lost in the chaos. O’Bee came up on top, with Kelly Benefit’s Calendaria slipping in for second.
“The guys took control at the right time,” said O’Bee. “If you try to control the whole circuit it’s too much.”
Ganging up on Armstrong
Last year’s NVGP champion Kristin Armstrong put in a commanding performance in Wednesday night’s stage-1 criterium, lapping the field just minutes into the race and finishing a solid 20 seconds ahead of TIBCO’s Joanne Kiesanowski and Brooke Miller.
The effort earned her bragging rights, but not time, since gaps were not recorded owing to a hopelessly scrambled field. That confusion angered some riders for stage 2, while it emboldened others.
The women’s field boiled with attacks and counterattacks, chiefly by the Cheerwine squad, but no organized effort developed or stuck. A hard crash halfway through the stage took skin off a number of riders at the back of the field, but as was the case in the men’s race, the women’s field entered the closing circuits relatively intact.
On the first two laps of the final circuit, Armstrong and her sole Cervello-LifeForce teammate, Emma Rickards, worked hard at the head of the pack, looking almost as if Armstrong would attempt the same show of force she’d displayed Wednesday night.
But this was a much longer lap with that demoralizing false flat, and by the fourth lap Armstrong had faded out of position, trying to regain her energy. In the final run, Cheerwine’s Catherine Cheatley led Laura Van Gilder beautifully, but Tina Pic (Colavita-Sutter Home) charged past to claim first, with TIBCO’s Joanne Kiesenowski on her heels.
Kiesanowski was TIBCO’s last hope: Lauren Franges broke a spoke early on the circuit, and Brooke Miller crossed wheels with Webcor’s Gina Grain just as she neared the beginning of the final lap. That put an end to Miller’s two-year run as queen of this stage, and postponed TIBCO’s hopes of capturing the GC.
Pic seemed both pleased and a little surprised when she pulled on the leader’s jersey. She’d been in the most serious crash earlier in the stage, and had to dodge Grain and Miller’s tangle before threading the needle to win at the line.
“It was a pretty aggressive race, it was tough, we had to work hard, and people were nervous,” she said.
Cheerwine’s Laura Van Gilder said the final charge was one of the toughest she’d seen all year.
“It felt a little like a meteor hurtling toward earth,” she quipped. “The energy was pretty intense out there.”
