Liberty Classic, 2007

I flew in from Montreal on Friday, happy to have a few easy days after the Montreal Tour and World Cup. Our team car had our race bikes so we flew without any worry of airlines damaging or losing our bikes. Our flight only took 1.5hrs so we were in our air conditioned hotel by 2pm and I soon decided to take a nap whilst waiting for our team car to arrive.

Bernard (mechanic) rang us to give us news that the team subaru had broken down. He transferred all the equipment into a rental van, only to be told the local mechanic had fixed the car. He transferred everything back into the car but knew he wouldn't reach us before nightfall. We went in search of bikes to ride and found Kelly Benefits willing to lend us a few of their lightspeeds. I got to try out SRAM running gear which I liked, after being given a quick lesson on how to change gears.

I had great legs today. Mara Abott was going for the KOM's with Armstrong and each time up the 16% wall a split would form. I got over the climb in the top 20 and with Mara up the road in the break, let other teams close the gap each lap.

The final lap was crazy with Rachel, Laura and Mara all crashing. Mara jumped up and quickly rejoined the peloton. It was race over for Rach who's bike was broken and also for Laura who chased hard but couldn't get back on.

The final kilometres of flat, fast and wide open roads provided a prime opportunity for sprinters to jostle for position, and with no team taking a clear control of the bunch to string things out, the group was 10 wide coming into the last kilometre. Theresa Cliff-Ryan (Verducci) got into a shoving match with Lipton's Brenda Lyons that resulted in both riders hitting the deck, taking down Colavita's Iona Wynter-Parks and Shannon Hutchison-Krupat (Aarons) in the process. Mara and I were right behind the crash and jammed on our brakes to avoid the carnage. We managed to stay upright but it was race over as we rolled in.

Unaffected by the wreck, the Nürnberger train put on the gas to set up Schleicher. As the riders hit the final 500 metre straightaway, Nürnberger's Trixi Worrack was in the lead, but was overhauled by an attack of T-Mobile's Kate Bates. This forced Schleicher to the front before the 200m to go point, allowing Teutenberg to come around the fading German and take the clear win with Gina Grain a close third.

1 Ina-Yoko Teutenberg (Ger) T-Mobile Pro Cycling Team 2.24.38
2 Regina Schleicher (Ger) Nuernberger Versicherung
3 Gina Grain (Can) Team expresscopy.com