John Murphy followed up his UnitedHealthcare teammate Coryn Rivera's victory with one of his own in downtown Winston-Salem at the USA Crits sixth round on Sunday. Murphy rode the 'blue train' lead-out for the last five laps, handily out-sprinting the US Criterium champion Brad Huff (Rally Cycling) to take the win. Ty Magner (UnitedHealthcare) rolled in for third.
Aggressive racing was at the fore-front on the 0.8-mile course around Bailey Park, an urban green space in downtown Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Attacks flew from the start of the 90-minute men's criterium, but no escape managed to stay away long.
"Our UnitedHealthcare team today was phenomenal. We were represented in every break. We weren't sure if it was going to be a break or a bunch sprint, so we had to be ready for both. We had all our guys ready for the bunch sprint, we lined it out at the end and they delivered me to the last corner, which is what I asked them to do. And then I was able to deliver with the win so we're very happy," said Murphy.
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He does admit to a little pressure after seeing his teammate win in the women's USA CRITS Winston-Salem Cycling Classic criterium. "We have super strong teams for both men and women. Obviously our goals when it comes to crits are always to win. When the women go ahead and deliver for us, it puts pressure on us (men's squad) a bit that we have to be part of the bargain."
The dynamic racing led to many riders dropping off the pace as the laps ticked by until a promising move escaped halfway through the race. Six riders bridged up to American Ty Magner of UnitedHealthcare who attacked a previous short-lived break. The seven escapees pushed the gap up to 21 seconds, but the field would have none of it. Canadian Alex Cataford of the Silber Racing Team made the next attempt causing more re-shuffling at the front of the race. With seven laps to go, the field was down to 48 riders out of 108 starters.
With five laps to go in the race, the UnitedHealthcare team lined up at the front of the field with Murphy tucked in. No one could come around Murphy after he unleashed his sprint in the final corner.
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