Sara Bergen climbed to the stage 3 win Friday at the Cascade Cycling Classic, stomping up the closing kilometres of the final climb to win by five seconds over late breakaway companions Kathryn Buss (Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank) and Emma Grant (Colavita-Bianchi).
Race leader Allie Dragoo (Sho-Air Twenty20) finished sixth in a badly splintered field, 24 seconds behind the winner but close enough to keep her yellow jersey heading into Saturday's criterium.
Wearing the green sprint jersey, Bergen was almost as surprised as everyone else to see the sprint leader take victory at the top of a long, but relatively shallow climb.
ADVERTISEMENT
"I have a little bit of secret climber left in me, and I didn't want to leave it up to chance, so with about 400 to go I put my head down and took it," she said. "I guess the green can be a bit deceiving, but I'm very happy to put some time in for the team and come into the crit with some strong legs."
Bergen, Buss and Grant escaped the bunch in the closing kilometres after the field brought back a large breakaway. Bergen tested the waters first, then finally broke the elastic with the two others.
"I started going on the offensive pretty assertively," Bergen said. "I put in two digs kind of consecutively to test people's legs and see if I could get a gap. There were only two people interested in coming, the Colavita and Tibco girls, so congratulations to them; great rides to both of them.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Race Results http://ift.tt/2tp7lwH
No comments:
Post a Comment