6/27/09 - Gina and Erinne rode a great race at nationals, with Erinne clearly the strongest and most aggressive rider in the race, and Gina well positioned to take the final sprint. Unfortunately some bad luck again kept Webcor from the result they hoped for. We can all be proud of their efforts though!
Erinne on the attack (again!):
http://www.canadiancyclist.com/races09/RoadNats/partfive/pages/_DSC9228.htm
Photo sequence of the final sprint:
Joelle starting the sprint (Gina right behind her and Alison Testroete on far right)
http://www.canadiancyclist.com/races09/RoadNats/partfive/pages/_DSC9382.htm
Joelle pulling out of her pedal (and impressively holding herself up!)
http://www.canadiancyclist.com/races09/RoadNats/partfive/pages/_DSC9383.htm
Gina restarting her sprint as Testroete continues:
http://www.canadiancyclist.com/races09/RoadNats/partfive/pages/_DSC9384.htm
Gina runs out of road
http://www.canadiancyclist.com/races09/RoadNats/partfive/pages/_DSC9395.htm
Here is Gina's Report:
You don't want it to happen to you and you don't want to be the person behind somebody unclipping their pedals in a final sprint...
But before this happened, Erinne rocked from the beginning of the 135 km Canadian national road race. She attacked from the gun just before the hill, creating a gap that nobody could close on the hill. She worked it and got up to 50 sec., but the long descent after the gradual climbs meant that the little green power bullet had to go like 60 km/hr by herself to stay away from the pack....The pack caught her at like 20km to go in the first of 3 45km loops.
Our plan was for hopefully Erinne to get away in a small group and then win. If that didn't work, I was the back up plan. Some smaller stuff got away and Erinne and I were attentive to who was up the road and did our work when neccessary to bridge or encourage a chase. The most aggressive and dangerous people away to the rest of the pack were Erinne and Anne Samplonious together. Finally this happened!!!! They got a pretty good gap of almost a minute on the last lap..buuuuuuuuut then that down hill came again....and they got caught again at about 15km to go.
From then on, a few people of the 20 or so left were trying to get away, but it came to a field sprint where Erinnne took the lead early, really early!!! I jumped on Joelle Numainvilles' wheel after Erinne gave it her all in the leadout...In the final sprint Joelle unclipped from her pedal...I was behind her...I had to swerve probably yell a "wholly @$^!@$!" and then get my game on again within 200m to go. Alison Testroete had the express lane with little traffic jam on the left, zooming past us, and as much as I wanted to catch up for the national title, I couldn't regain the speed I had. Erinne rode a great race and together our game plan worked well. I think Joelle will learn to change her cleats more often after that. And for WEBCOR a silver medal instead of a jersey and a title.
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