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The Wachovia Liberty Classic consists of four laps of a 23km course in
the streets of Philadelphia. The course consists of two climbs, the
Manuyuk wall reaching a gradient of 18% and a short steep climb, known
as Lemon Hill. The first three laps were marked by a few attacks with no
consequence.
With a record field of 190 women it was a sketchy nervous peloton. The
variation in ability caused a myriad of crashes on every lap and
fortunately, none of the Rona riders were tangled up in these falls.
Up Lemon Hill on the final lap, Rona's Katrina Grove attacked and got a
gap over the top. On Groves wheel was Judith Arndt,
(Nurnberger/Lietzsport) who merely wanted to cover Grove until the pack
came back. Grove managed to hold the gap at 5 seconds, but the peloton
came back on the pair with only 1km to go.
Eighty riders survived the climbs to contest the crazy sprint finish.
German Petra Rossner (Nurnberger/Lietzsport) out sprinted her rivals to
take her seventh Liberty Classic. Canadian Gina Grain (Victory Brewing)
and American Laura Van Gilder (Genesis Scuba), finished 2nd and 3rd,
respectively. The winner's time was 2hrs 25min and 50sec, averaging
37km/hr.
Andrea Hannos was Rona's top finisher with a 12th place. I was too
complacent in getting to the front during the final 3km's and ended up
badly positioned, finishing a disappointing 42nd. Katrina, Katheryn and
Anna finished 45th, 48th and 90th, respectively. Erinne Willock (Rona)
had a great day winning the Queen of the Mountain classification, by
accumulating the most points in the race's eight climbing sprints.
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