The Marion Clignet Diary 2000
Vuelta Ciclista Navarra FeminasNavarra, Spain, April 21-23, 2000Stage 1 - April 21: Noain-Tudela 127 km Stage one of Navarra was 127 kilometres with, if I remember correctly, 3 climbs. On climb one, Longo went to the front hoping to string things out a bit. Ziliute immediately took her wheel while myself, Tatiana Stiajkina, and Vera Hohlfeld set her up for the GPM. The climb was fairly smooth, awesome roads -wide, no potholes to speak of! The second climb was fairly uneventful - Ziliute took the points easily and then we began approaching the finish. At five km things were getting a bit frantic, the front of the pack was like a slalom. the Norwegians had a good team and were working hard for Monica Valen. Zita Urbonite was at the front with Hohlfield and Stiajkina powering away for Ziliute. I managed to weasel in with 3km to go to try and help out as well as slide in 5th I think. Stage 2a - April 22: Olite-Tafalla 80 km Stage two was the following morning on a fairly trying 27km circuit with a nice climb finishing right on into the wind. the first time up the pace set off with about two km to go to the GPM. with about 300 meters to go, right where it hurts, a group of 9 or so went for it right after the sprint. Ziliute, a few Norweigans, Tatiana, etc. The English also riding strong had no one up there so they began to put the hammer down. A new rider of theirs (Sue Carter) took off with me crosseyed on her wheel, my computer was reading 57kmh!!! When she was spent Megan Hughes came in from the outside and rode the gutter (wicked cross wind) with me still crosseyed...we made it back to the pack just before a small rise and another head wind. Yes, this is fun. Coming in for the finale, instead of turning right as usual we were going straight for the banner which seemed almost too close! Our train had been battling it out with the Norwegian train - the last km I looked up and saw the banner, managed to look under my arm to see Ziliute ready for another win! I tried to keep up the pace to squeeze in a top ten and managed 8th. Stage 2b - April 22: Arizaleta-Arizala, ITT, 6.8 km In the evening we had a 6km time trial which looked a lot different in the road book. It started with a 2.5km climb, a twisty 2km descent and some flat, another small rise, more flat, sharp right and 300m rise to the finish. Longo put in a fast time equipped with double discs, TT bike, etc. As the evening went on the times were coming down, when finally Ziliute smoked everone on a regular road bike! Awesome ride. I was hammered so that took care of that. Stage 3 - April 23: Adrian-Pamplona 102 km the last stage was another 100 plus with two really long and hard climbs: the first about 10km and the second about 8. Ziliute went off the front with Somarriba on the second GPM and were rejoined on the descent by a group of 8. The finish was uphill and Ziliute once again won easily, outsprinting Somarriba. The next group was about 25 strong and at least 3 minutes down. |
