Miguel Martinez followed the script of fellow world champion Marga Fullana in the Sarentino, Italy World Cup, but in more gripping fashion. The 115-pound Full Dynamix rider closed a 23-second gap on 162-pound Roland Green (Trek-Volkswagen) on the last lap and then outsprinted the Canadian after playing cat and mouse for the last kilometer. Like Fullana, Martinez swept the time trial and the cross country, while Green and Specialized’s Barbara Blatter finished second in both races.
A lead group of seven had stayed together throughout most of the race, but when Bas Van Dooren (Specialized) crashed in the tough drops the second-to-last time through the “Double S” technical section, Green scooted by while the others were delayed. The Victoria, B.C. native kept hammering up the climbs and across the two-kilometer long flat to the finish and opened a 23-second gap at the beginning of the seventh and final lap.
Martinez was biding his time in the chase group, which did not organize a united pursuit on the flat dirt road. Van Dooren got back on, but his teammate Filip Meirhaeghe came off the back with World Cup leader Jose Antonio Hermida (Bianchi-Motorex) at the start of the last lap. Martinez attacked the remainders, namely Van Dooren, Bart Brentjens (Giant) and Marco Bui (Marin-Helly Hansen) halfway up the first climb and never looked back. Green knew the tiny Frenchman was coming but could not pick up the pace enough to hold him off and was caught with two kilometers to go.
Having an Italian sponsor and living in Italy, Martinez had been aiming for this race for some time and was super-motivated. It looked like he would be thwarted when, while riding in the lead group of seven on the fourth lap, he crashed face first off a big rock drop in the “Double-S” technical section and landed hard on his chest. His rainbow jersey was covered with dust, but he clearly was not having any trouble breathing when he needed to catch Green. The Canadian had stopped and stepped around the fallen Martinez and said later, “I didn’t figure it would slow him down. He’s too light to hurt himself.”
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World champion Marga Fullana led from the first climb of four laps around the tough Sarentino World Cup course. The gap over her Specialized teammate and reigning World Cup champion Barbara Blatter grew steadily from a handful of seconds to over a minute by the end. American Alison Dunlap (GT) rode a steady race, maintaining third place throughout and keeping Blatter within 20-30 seconds until the final lap, when she fell over a minute behind the Swiss wearing the World Cup leader’s jersey. The other North American, Alison Sydor (Trek-Volkswagen), fell steadily back from the top five to finish 10th.
The world champion, whose power is unquestioned but whose technical skills are a bit suspect, was aided by a last-minute course change on a steep technical downhill. She had been among a number of women complaining that the “Hölle” drop was too dangerous, and the pole was moved inward a meter, making a rather heart-stopping drop over some large rocks and roots into a straightforward slither down loose dirt.
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World champions Marga Fullana and Miguel Martinez started the European World Cup season right where they left off last year. Fullana beat her Specialized teammate and reigning World Cup champion Barbara Blatter by 22 seconds in the qualifying time trial in Sarentino, Italy, while Martinez (Full Dynamix) finished ten seconds up on Roland Green (Trek-Volkswagen). The time trial was held in order to seed the riders for tomorrow’s cross country.
The course in Sarentino has changed for this year, and 10th-placed Thomas Frischknecht (Ritchey-Yahoo!) called it “the toughest World Cup course in Europe, both technically and physically. It is all rideable but very hard. There is a lot of climbing.” The 5-kilometer time trial encompassed all of the most challenging sections of the 6.5 km cross-country course, although it cut off a long stretch of flat along the Talvera river as well as the start loop.
Before the race, Green bemoaned, “I wish they would have us do the whole lap.” Given the small time gap between him and the diminutive climbing machine in the rainbow jersey, had those flat stretches been included in the time trial, the powerful Canadian could have been standing above the Frenchman on the podium.
Except for a 1 km run-in to the finish, the course was either climbing or descending the entire time. After a long, gradual climb traversing back and forth across the picturesque alpine mountain, a gnarly zigzag drop called the “Double-S” drove the heart rates of the oxygen-starved and panting riders even higher. Many did not make it through the large boulder drops in the tight turns. Another couple of drops and high-speed switchbacks after washboard braking bumps kept it exciting until the big rocky drop called “Hölle” where many riders also tumbled.
Martinez, starting 39th from last, took off like a shot and wasted no time in catching his 30-second and 1:30-men. His minute man, former world champion Hubert Pallhuber (Diamond Back), could feel the Frenchman’s breath on his neck throughout the final descent and run-in. Green lost time on the climb to Martinez but, riding a fully-suspended Trek, he seemed to be closing the gap on the descent. Fullana also started early (18th from last), resulting in similar devastation of the riders starting :30, 1:00, 2:30 and 3:00 ahead of her. The lean Spaniard passed those four riders and barely missed passing a fifth – teammate Elsbeth Vink – her 2-minute woman.
Check back to www.VeloNews.com tomorrow for a full story and results from the cross country race.
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You couldn’t ask for a more exciting start to the men’s World Cup cross-country season. Spectators at the Domaine Chandon winery in Yountville, California, were treated to a thrilling opener Sunday that featured seesaw battles for the lead, a touch of weather drama and a first-time winner in Spanish sensation Jose Antonio Hermida.
The 22-year-old Hermida, riding for Bianchi Motorex, experienced a career high last year in Spain when he won the world title in the under-23 category. But even that, said an emotional Hermida after completing the 25.2-mile course in 2:02:06, doesn’t compare to the feeling of beating such stars as Cadel Evans, Miguel Martinez and the rest of the men’s World Cup field of 121 riders.
“For me, it is more important here because I was fighting for a period to [win] one World Cup,” Hermida said.
Ranked 12th in the World Cup last year, Hermida has hinted at this sort of potential. An even bigger surprise might have been the man he barely beat, Marc Hanisch (Orbea). The 26-year-old had onlookers double-checking their start sheets to see if this relatively unknown could really be riding with the leaders. He was.
In fact, Hanisch held on until the end and finished second to Hermida, just eight seconds back. “I wanted to surprise some people, that was my goal here,” said the blond crewcut German in near perfect English.
Putting an exclamation point on the message that a new generation of talent has arrived was another former under-23 world champion, Marco Bui. The Italian AS Marin-Helly Hansen rider finished third.
Bui, who posted the fastest time in Saturday’s time trial, could earn the title for the day’s most aggressive rider — and under rainy skies that made the track slick, there were plenty of aggressive riders.
Canadian Ryder Hesjedal (Subaru-Gary Fisher) was the first up-and-comer to take charge. The lanky blond went to the front on the pavement of the first of two promenade loops, and stayed out front for the first five miles of the race. Hesjedal was eventually caught by a trio containing two Frenchmen — 1998 world champion Christophe Dupouey (Giant) and Ludovic Dubau (Orbea) — as well as Bui, who was leading the chase. By the end of the second of six laps, German Lado Fumic — wearing the pink colors of Telekom — had charged to the front. Then, at the midway point, Hermida bridged up to the leaders and went right through to solo off the front. He gained a 24-second advantage over Hanisch and Bui, but that duo chipped away at his lead over the next couple of laps and caught the Spaniard with two laps — or eight miles — to go.
Behind Bui’s technical savvy in the slick stuff, that lead trio held off charges while major shakeups happened behind them. The key questions, of course, involved some riders who weren’t there. Cadel Evans (Volvo-Cannondale) was struggling about 20 riders back. Last year’s winner at Napa, Bas Van Dooren (Specialized), was even further back. Olympic champion Miguel Martinez was starting to get his groove, working his way up from 15th or so, before he punctured his rear tire.
In other words, there was lots of room for new faces. In the end, Bui took the third-place points, just four seconds behind Hanisch, while Dupouey, representing the old guard, was fourth. Fumic was fifth, followed by Frenchman Gregory Vollet, wearing the new colors of the Creuse Oxygene team.
Hesjedal hung on to nab the top North American placing, 10th, followed closely by fellow Canadian Roland Green, who, after a rough start that saw him buried with a mid-race placing around the high 20s, climbed up to 11th.
RACE NOTE:Once again, no U.S. men made it to page one of the results sheet. Olympians Travis Brown (Trek-Volkswagen) and Tinker Juarez (Volvo-Cannondale) were both DNF’s, as was U.S. national champion Steve Larsen. The highest placing American was Kirk Molday (Sunrace-Santa Cruz), in 32nd.
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As far as gravity disciplines go, dual slalom and the new mountain cross disciplines get more play than the course-challenged downhill race at the Sea Otter Classic. Nonetheless, some of the world’s best gravity racers gathered on a sunny Sunday morning for the season’s first taste of real competition at Monterey. World champion Anne-Caroline Chausson broke out the new Cannondale downhill bike; Missy Giove was sporting the nuclear green-and-blue of the new Global team (with matching blue hair); and Steve Peat was up to his old tricks with GT.
Peat won the short jaunt through a series of man-made jumps and obstacles, while Marla Streb started her campaign with the Foes-Azonic team in fine fashion as she pulled off an upset win over Chausson.
“It’s an obstacle course,” is how Streb described the 0.9-mile course. The colorful veteran took an interesting approach to get the win, when she tumbled across the finish line after hitting an oddly-placed rock garden near the finish with exceptional speed. Most other riders chose to pick their way through carefully.
“My strategy was not to brake here in the rocks,” she said. “I knew that even if you crashed, as long as your hands are on the handlebars, that’s fine because you activate the timer.” She activated that timer with the numbers 1:41.332, less than three-tenths of a second faster than Chausson.
Peat was first out of the start gate for the men, and his time of 1:27.257 put him in the leader’s seat, a spot he settled into for the rest of the morning.
Peat’s win was no surprise, but the story of the day might have been the glimpse of the future seen by the small group of spectators gathered at the more interesting sections of the course. Southern California up-and-comer Colin Bailey finished second, followed by South African Greg Minnaar of the newly formed Global team.
Giove’s teammate Minnaar said the big-budget Global formation will allow him to focus more on racing this year, and he looks forward to duking it out with World Cup talents on the level of Peat all season. “I want to get another top-10 overall in the World Cup [downhill] and I want to improve in the dual,” Minnaar said.
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It’s called the Sea Otter Classic, and Saturday the event lived up to its name, providing a pair of classic match-ups in the finals of the dual slalom.
On the men’s side it was defending world champion Wade Bootes taking on reigning World Cup champ Brian Lopes. The women’s final saw American Missy Giove taking on her nemesis, Frenchwoman Anne-Caroline Chausson. Give round one to Lopes and Chausson. Each drank in the first taste of victory in 2001, after picking up wins on a warm, sunny day in the hills outside Monterey, California.
For Lopes, the road to the final proved tougher than the final itself. After cruising through the first two rounds, the GT-Fox rider lost the first heat of his round-of-eight match-up with Global Racing youngster Mick Hannah, and had to make up 0.136 seconds on the 16-year-old Australian. But Lopes has been through the wars, and was able to come back in the second heat, cranking his way across the line for a 0.439-second win and spot in the semifinals against Greg Minnaar.
“I just got to know the guy these last couple days,” said Lopes of Hannah. “He was flying in that first heat.”
Lopes fell behind Minnaar early in the first heat, but caught the South African at the end, taking a 0.309-second advantage into the next heat. There the SoCal native nearly saw his day end when he landed wrong off a small jump and went barreling into a hay bale. But somehow Lopes managed to keep it together, and held on to stay close enough to Minnaar to advance to the final.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the bracket, Trek-Volkswagen’s Bootes had the tougher draw, but an easier time. The Australian had little trouble dispatching Haro-Lee Dungarees Mike King in the round of eight, before holding off Mongoose’s Eric Carter in the semis.
In the final, Lopes and Bootes battled to a near standoff in the first heat, with Lopes scratching out a miniscule 0.131-second advantage. But in the second heat, Lopes put an early gap on Bootes, and in an attempt to make up some ground, the bulky Aussie slipped a pedal during the final third of the course and went down hard, allowing Lopes to soft-pedal across the finish for the win.
“I just wanted to keep it close in the last heat because 0.131 isn’t anything,” Lopes said. “Fortunately, Bootes made it easy on me.”
Carter beat out Minnaar in the consolation final to take third place.
The women’s semis saw Volvo-Cannondale’s Chausson square off with Schwinn’s Leigh Donovan, and Giove take on Jamis’s Katrina Miller. Neither match up was particularly close, as Chausson blew away Donovan by 1.5 seconds in the first heat, then cruised in the second for the win, while Giove beat Miller in back to back heats to advance.
In the finals it was all Chausson, as she again put the maximum 1.5-second time differential on the board in the first heat, then held on for the win in the second.
“The first race of the year is always tough,” Chausson said. “Plus, facing Missy in the finals was pretty stressful. But everything worked out and that was good.”
Miller took out Donovan in the consolation round to earn third place.
Moments after awards were passed out to the dual slalom winners, spectators headed back up the course to take in the always-popular big-air contest. There a host of riders young and old wowed the large crowd with a variety of X-Games quality stunts. Thirteen-year-old Kyle Strait of Redlands, California, went the biggest, winning the contest and pocketing $800 for his troubles.
Most of the pro riders will be back on their bikes Sunday for the final two pro races at Sea Otter. In the morning it’s the downhill, where Chausson and Lopes will be among the favorites. The afternoon will see the unveiling of mountain cross, the gated event where four races take to the course at the same time.
Check back to www.VeloNews.com later in the day for a full report.
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Round one of the 2001 New Zealand Mountain Biking national championship series got going January 6-7, in Levin. Downhill opened the competition, as riders tackled a steep 2km course that was smooth, fast, and very dusty.
In the women’s race Sheryl MacLeod (Haro) came down in a flurry, posting a time of 3:30.70 to claim her first win of the season. Current European champion Tracy Mosely (Kona-Ford Focus) finished second, four seconds back, while Vanessa Quin (Giant) was third.
On the men’s side, 2000 series’ winner Glenn Sisarich wasn’t around, meaning the race was wide open. Nathan Rankin (Foes-Azonic) was quickest down the hill, putting up a time of 3:12.07. In second was John Kirkcaldie (Maxxis Tires), just .57 of a second back. This was a familiar theme for Rankin and Kirkaldie, who finished third and fourth respectively in the 2000 NORBA downhill series.
Sunday’s cross-country took place on a steamy, cloudless day. The race was contested on a partially forested course that contained two vicious climbs and some muddy patches in between.
Reigning New Zealand champion Susy Pryde (Avanti) reeled in an early break by Sadie Parker (Trek-Volkswagen), and led the rest of the way, winning in 1:46:47. Parker wound up second more than four minutes back. And in a repeat of the finishing order from the 2000 series, Lisa Savage (Giant) finished strongly to take third.
In the men’s race, a nine-lap affair on the 9km course, brothers Jeremy and Stuart Houltham pushed the pace early with Kurt Lancaster and Paul Bishop (K2) in close pursuit. But Jeremy punctured on the second lap falling far off the pace. From there Stuart and Bishop battled with Stuart pulling out the race at the finish in a time of 2:25:09. Wayne Hiscock ended up third and Jeremy clawed his way back from his flat to finish fourth.
Round two of the series is January 20-21 in Tokoroa.
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