Jefferson Cup, April 1st 2012
The women’s 123 race at Jeff Cup has been very well summarized on a fellow racer’s blog in this way “the ABRT women ripped everyone's legs off and made it a great race. Really amazing work.” That’s what really happened. Now, if you want to know more details, read bellow.
There were 39 racers pre-registered, including a former pro from Colavita, Kelly Fisher-Goodwin (former Kelly Benjamin). Sue, Katy, Sara and I went over race tactics with Beth the nightbefore and just before the race, so we had very clear what each of us was supposed to do and I think we did pretty good job executing the plan. Sue did a great job attacking and covering attacks especially during the first half of the race. Another rider in front of her gapped her in the last lap but, in spite of all the hard work Sue did during the race, she was able to catch up with the field and finish with the main group. Besides Sue’s and a few other short-lived attacks, the pace was quite slow and everybody was playing conservative until Katy and Sara, sometimes in tandem, other times separately, tried to get away from the field several times. Katy was very close to break free in two occasions. At this point everybody knows how dangerous she is and this time different teams with strong riders teamed upchasing her. I was sitting in the middle of the field (obedient with my sawing machine, ahem…trying to be fresh as a daisy, as Katy puts it) while the field was chasing Katy. I can tell you they were not calling her kind names in their heads. I saw riders coming off the front huffing and puffing, giving their spot for someone else to lead the chase. At the end it came to a field sprint. I was supposed to follow Kelly’s wheel during the race. I followed her a couple of times, once when she tried to break away and a second when bridging to a short lived breakaway. Other than that, I tried to be rested for a possible field sprint. Well, a field sprint there was and I don’t know why I didn’t feel with good legs yesterday and I found myself in a bad position starting the last Km of the race. So I used up a match to move up but there were only 500 meters or so left to try to recover before the final jump. Luckily Katy came to the rescue! She showed up next to me with Sara on her wheel, they let me in behind Katy who gave a great lead out, kind of parallel to the front group where others were fighting for position. Kelly and Lindsay jumped first, I went after them but couldn’t catch them, and finished 3rd while Kelly won the race. Sara finished 5th and Katy 6th. It was a great team performance and a lot of fun racing with ABRT!!
By: Ainhoa Diaz-Perez
