British champion does it again in the race that made her name
Some day the peloton will learn that they can’t allow Emma Pooley (Garmin-Cervélo) get too far away in a long, hilly race; until that day the British champion will just keep on winning. Pooley attacked alone, in her own trademark fashion, and stayed away to take the second Trofeo Alfredo Binda of her career. The chase was led over the line by Swedish champion Emma Johansson (Hitec Products-UCK), who outsprinted Annemiek Van Vleuten (Netherlands) on the uphill finishing straight.
The race started under rainy skies in Cittiglio, to the West of Varese, the venue of the 2008 World Championships, and, while the rain was to stop the roads would remain wet and slippery throughout the race.
The peloton stayed together for the first 20km on the outward leg to Luino on the shores of Lago Maggiore; the intermediate sprint was taken by Claudia Häusler (Diadora-Pasta Zara), over teammate Olga Zabelinskaya and Aniko Revesz (Hungary). On the return leg though, which included the race’s big climb to Cunardo, the selection began.
Irina Molicheva (Russia) led the race over the top; the peloton behind her was now reduced to just 50 riders. Sharon Laws (Garmin-Cervélo) attacked over the top of the climb but she was immediately brought back. After 34km Zabelinskaya, who was one of the most active riders in last year’s race, attacked and Laws joined her; the two riders were kept in sight by the peloton though and were unable to get more than 50 metres clear.
As they passed through Orino after 44km, at the top of the descent back to Cittiglio for the first time, there were just 37 riders left in the front group.
At the bottom of the descent, on the few flat kilometres on the way to Cittiglio, Pooley made her move; by the time she crossed the finish line after 52km, with almost 70km still to race, she led a chasing group of twenty riders by 26 seconds. Evelyn Stevens (HTC-Highroad) led the group over the line in pursuit, followed by Shelley Olds (Diadora-Pasta Zara).
As Pooley crossed the top of the Orino climb, 9km later, she led the chasing group by almost 2 minutes; by the time she crossed the finish line once again, with 3 laps to go, her advantage had risen to 2’20”. The chase behind was hampered by the presence in the chase group of Pooley’s Garmin-Cervélo teammates Laws, Noemi Cantele and Carla Ryan, who managed to make their numerical superiority count and stifle any organisation in the pursuit.
Pooley, the British and World time trial champion’s lead peaked as she crossed the Orino climb for the penultimate time with just over 25km to go, 3 minutes ahead of Tatiana Antoshina (Gauss) and Chantal Blaak (AA Drink-Leontien.nl). At this point the chase began to make progress, as Pooley had by now been at the front of the race for almost 50km.
During the final lap the gap closed further, but Pooley managed to hang on to finish alone; other than the different jersey and bike, as well as the British champion’s much greater assurance in victory, the scene was virtually identical to the 2008 race, where Pooley burst onto the scene with her first World Cup victory.
Johansson, who has been virtually unbeatable in Belgium this month, outsprinted the chase group 1’32” behind Pooley, with Annemiek Van Vleuten finishing third.
Race victory gives Pooley the first World Cup leader’s jersey of the season, which may well mean that the British champion rides in next week’s Ronde van Vlaanderen, a race that she doesn’t like. 50 points for second place though, gives Johansson a vital head start in the season-long competition over defending champion Marianne Vos (Nederland Bloeit), who was busy on the track this weekend winning the scratch race World Championship.