Defending US under-23 champion Ellen Noble (Aspire Racing) earned another year in the stars-and-stripes jersey Sunday at the USA Cycling Cyclo-cross National Championships in Hartford, Connecticut.
Living up to pre-race expectations, the event came down to a battle between Noble and Emma White (Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com), with the duo tightly locked through the first lap-and-a-half before Noble took the lead for good on the frozen, snow-covered course along the Connecticut river.
Noble crossed the finish line with a 30-second advantage over runner-up White, with Hannah Finchamp (Clif Pro Team) in third at 3:48.
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White and Noble established themselves as the riders to beat within the first minute of racing. White narrowly took the hole shot and maintained a small advantage through the first lap as the pair quickly put the rest of the field into the rearview mirror.
"I had a rough plan," Noble said of her strategy. "But it's not like a road race where you're like, 'I'm going to attack with 6k to go,' or something like that.
"I knew that there was a lot of time to make mistakes, so I really wanted to ride my own pace and just focus on not making mistakes and being super, super consistent. I had a few little dabs but overall I rode a very clean race. And that's exactly what I aimed for. That was really my strategy. If I could have led from the beginning, if I could have gotten the hole shot and led into the first run-up, I would have been happy to, but Emma starts really, really well. So the fact that she took the hole shot was something that I sort of anticipated.
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