Megan Guarnier (Boels-Dolmans) claimed her third US national road race title, beating Coryn Rivera (UnitedHealthcare) and surprise bronze medalist Mandy Heintz (Visit Dallas DNA Cycling) in a bunch sprint in warm and muggy summer weather in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Guarnier won the national championships in Chattanooga, Tennessee last year from a five-rider breakaway, and in 2012 in a similar small bunch sprint in Augusta, Georgia.
With only Evelyn Stevens on her team for the race, Guarnier bided her time in the peloton as the teams with more riders tried to break the stranglehold of the peloton. Lindsay Bayer (Hagens Berman-Supermint) was the first attacker, going out solo for two laps on the third trip of the 15.6km circuit before being reeled in. A lap-long stalemate followed, only to be broken by North Carolina native Nina Laughlin (Visit Dallas DNA Cycling), who went solo with three laps remaining.
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Laughlin was joined one lap later by Kathryn Donovan (Colavita-Bianchi), and the pair worked well together to build up nearly two minutes on the field, but a concerted chase from UnitedHealthcare's Katie Hall whittled down their advantage.
Twenty 16 sent young rider Janelle Cole up the road with one lap to go, and she quickly made her way toward the two leaders as Laughlin began to struggle. Laughlin threw in the towel mid-way through the lap, coming to a near stand-still as Cole sped past to make it to Donovan with the field in sight behind. Their lead was just 20 seconds with half a lap to race, and it quickly evaporated on the undulating run-in to downtown Winston-Salem.
The pair were brought back with 5km to go, and were quickly countered by a trio with Alison Tetrick (Cylance) at the head, but they too could not withstand the chase.
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