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Kabush, Sydor take Otter cross-country titles
On Saturday, Geoff Kabush (Maxxis) followed up his pre-race promise to ignite a mid-race afterburner by flaming out feet from the finish line of the short track. Sunday, few thought the 28-year old Canadian would be brash enough to make a another pre-race promise, but before the 36-mile long cross country, Kabush announced that he had a similar battle plan.
“I’ve come in third and second this week. I’m going to take risks and either win it or go down trying,” said Kabush, who decided to run an unconventionally skinny pair of tires, weighing only110 grams, on the course. “It’s a risk, but this isn’t part of a series. I don’t want to just ride around out there and get second or third. I want to win this thing.”
Coming into Sunday’s event Kabush was a full 1:04 down on 1996 Olympic Gold medalist Bart Brentjens (Giant), whose victory in the opening Super-X and second place in Saturday’s short track had the entire men’s field at playing catch up.
And after Sunday’s early morning fog quickly burned off beneath a beating central coast sun, a stiff wind blowing from the south east made the conditions all the more difficult for any rider’s effort to make up any time gap of significance.
But soon into the first lap, Kabush and Liam Killeen (Specialized) attacked up a steep climb, forcing the field to chase. Brentjens headed the chasing pack, and shortly after Kabush and Killeen pulled away, short track winner Trent Lowe (Subaru-Gary Fisher) suffered the first serious fall of the day. Coming down slight descent in a tight pack, Lowe lost his line in a packed section and flew over the handlebars, suffering serious scrapes on his left side and twisting his handlebars and stem.
“I was flying behind Todd Wells and I just couldn’t see the rut come up. It all happened so quick that by the time I knew what was happening I was being passed up by six or seven riders,” said Lowe, who abandoned the race shortly thereafter. “Now I wish I would have kept going, but at the moment I was so dazed I didn’t really know what to do.”
Lowe escaped with minor bumps and bruises, but in a more serious pileup on the second lap, his Subaru-Gary Fisher teammate Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski was not as lucky.
Horgan-Kobelski went down while in second position in a chase group, and in the day’s most tense moment, the 2004 American Olympian had to be airlifted to Stanford Medical center with a broken sacrum. It is not known how long he will be out with the injury, but fiancée Heather Irminger was confident her husband-to-be was in relatively good spirits.
“I talked to him on the phone and he sounded disappointed but okay,” she said. “He’ll be drinking beer with the team by the end of the night.”
With Lowe and Horgan-Kobelski out of the chase group, the followers could not muster the horsepower to chase Killeen and Kabush down. After the first lap their advantage stood at 2:18. As the two racers crested the final hill and headed for home, the chasers were nowhere in sight.
Kabush, gunning for the stage victory, led out the sprint and finished a length ahead of Killeen at the line.
“Me and Liam worked pretty well together out there,” Kabush said after the win. “There was a lot of wind on the last lap but we were consistent with pulls.”
Sid Taberley (Specialized) attacked midway through the last lap but could not bridge up to his teammate and Kabush. The Australian finished third. Brentjens rolled in 6th, four minutes behind Kabush and Killeen.
“It was very tough out there. Very tough,” said a tired Brentjens after the race. “They pushed the pace right at the beginning. I fell a few times and was very tired by the end.”
Compact
With the windy conditions playing a factor, the women’s field stayed fairly compact throughout the two-lap race.
“It was your typical Sea Otter. Everyone stayed together,” said Kelli Emmett (Ford), who finished fifth. “It was actually a little frustrating. Someone would put in an attack, and then we’d all just hold up and look at each other. It was kind of lame.”
However, midway through the first lap, Katerina Hanusova (Luna), sitting second in GC behind Alyson Sydor (Rocky Mountain-Business Objects), suffered a crash and a flat tire. Despite her efforts to fix the tire in the tech zone, Hanusova lost contact permanently with the group.
But with no one willing to take serious chances, the field crested the final hill and headed for home in a bunch, with Sydor taking honors ahead of Wendy Simms (Frontrunners). The second place finish for Simms bumped her up to third overall in the GC – her best finish at a major mountain bike event.
“It’s pretty exciting right now. I told myself the wins would come,” said Simms, last year’s Canadian national cyclo-cross champion.
Mountain Cross
Jill Kitner attributed her win in Sunday’s mountain-cross to sleeping late and skipping this morning’s pro women’s downhill. Kitner, racing for Yeti Cycles, edged out Katrina Miller and Sabrina Jonnier to win the event.
Skipping the downhill put Kitner seventh in the overall gravity Omnium, but the Golden, Colorado, resident said the choice was a no-brainer.
“I was really not feeling up to the downhill today. It’s such a short course and I really just wanted to save it for the ‘cross,” said Kitner. “I think skipping it was the best decision I’ve made in a while.”
Brian Lopes (GT-Oakley) dominated competition in the men’s mountain cross, winning every qualifying and elimination round, including the finals where he edged out Wade Bootes (Team WBR) for the victory. After placing a disappointing ninth in the downhill and exiting Saturday’s dual slalom early in the elimination rounds, Lopes still saw Sunday’s event as one that largely offered an opportunity for high-level practice.
“It’s good to see where everybody is at in their seasons right now,” he said. “When the first straightaway is only 50 feet it’s pretty hard for anybody who isn’t in the hole to win. I was just lucky enough to have good positioning going into the finals.”Sea Otter Classic
Mountain Cross Results
Women
1. Jill Kitner, Yeti Cycles
2. Katrina Miller (Aus), Jamis
3. Sabrina Jonnier (F), Intense
4. Tracy Moseley, Kona-Les Gets
MEN
1. Brian Lopes, GT-Oakley
2. Wade Bootes (Aus), Team WBR
3. Jared Graves (Aus), Yeti Cycles
4. Bryn Atkinson, GT
Dowhnill Omnium
Women
1. Moseley
2. Jonnier
3. Kathy Pruitt, Luna
4. Anneke Beerten, Specialized
5. Vanessa Quin, Intense
Men
1. Graves
2. Atkinson
3. Mick Hannah (Aus), Haro
4. Fabian Barel (F), Kona-Les Gets Factory
5. Lopes
Cross-Country
(All results are unofficial)
1. Geoff Kabush (Can), Team Maxxis, 2:17:23
2. Liam Killeen (GB), Specialized, at 0:01
3. Sid Taberley (Aus), Specialized, at 2:34
4. Florian Vogel (Swi), SwissPower, at 3:35
5. Todd Wells (USA), GT at same time
6. Bart Brentjens (Nl), Giant Bicycles, at 3:37
7. Adam Craig, Giant Bicycyles, at 4:14
8. Barry Wicks, Kona LesGets Factory Team, at 6:21
9. Roland Green (Can), LesGets Factory Team, at 6:22
10. Mathiew Toullouse (Can), at 6:48
Final general classification
1. Kabush, Team Maxxis, 3:34:03
2. Killeen, Specialized, at 0:21
3 Bart Brentjens, Giant Bicycles at 3.01
4: Taberley (Aus) Specialized, at 3.22
5. Vogel, SwissPower, at 4:12
6.Wells, GT, at 4:42
7.Craig, Giant Bicycles, at 5:24
8. Green, Kona LesGets Factory Team, at 8:51
