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Wells, Malone tops in Silver City
Silver City, N.M. - Silver City residents handed over the streets of their historic downtown for the fourth stage of The Outside Magazine Tour of the Gila Saturday. In return, they got the chance to see something special, both Todd Wells and Cat Malone winning their first National Race Calendar stage victories.
Wells sprinted across the finish line, leading a peloton of 83, to finish the race at 1:34:33 in the men’s pro. A former national mountain bike champion, Wells said this win gave him a little vindication as a road racer.
“I do a lot of cyclo-cross racing, which is similar to criteriums,” Wells said. “It’s hard. You know we’re all tired after racing the past couple of days and being here without a team, I have to pick my moves that I try to mark sparingly.”
Louis Garneau Racing’s Robbie King took second, followed by Fiordi Frutta’s Dan Timmerman in third.
Andrew Bajadali, riding with Vitamin Cottage, still sits atop the GC at 9:48:55, followed closely by Aerospace Engineering-VMG’s Ivan Stevic a mere three seconds behind. Two-time tour champion Burke Swindlehurst, this year riding with Team Seasilver, is still in contention for third at 23 seconds behind.
In the team GC, Team Tecos from Mexico is still ahead at 29:32:21, followed by Vitamin Cottage 1:11 behind. Fiordi Frutta is two minutes off the leader.
Cat Malone led a group of six in the pro women’s race, all crossing the line at 1:10:39. Malone won stages before in northern California but never had an NRC stage under her belt. Now she is more than pleased with the victory.
“We see a lot of highly competitive racers in northern California but this is my first NRC win so I am excited,” Malone said about the win. “It is really exciting.”
Tokyo Joe’s Molly Hummel took second and CRCA Team Lipton’s Anna Milkowski finished third.
T-Mobile continued their domination over both the individual and team GC with Kimberly Baldwin standing above everybody else at 9:29:30. Her closest competitor is still Genevieve Jeanson, 1:06 back, with Monex’s Lynn Gaggioli sitting at third 4:31 behind.
T-Mobile is ahead of the team competition at 28:40:30, followed by Webcor Builders 15:45 behind. Colavita/Cooking Light is third at 20:35 behind.
