17th Hewlett Packard LaserJet International Women's Challenge - 2.9.1

USA, June 8- 18, 2000

Stage 6 - June 13: Burley - Buhl Road Race, 84.2 mi/135 km

Anna Wilson's report

Today we raced 136 kms on mainly flat roads, with a short climb in the last 10 kms. The wind was extreme today and it was to determine the race. After creeping into a headwind for the first 10 kms of the race, we gradually turned into a raging cross wind. Ina Teutenberg (Germany) attacked down the left hand side of the road and before we knew it, there were gaps all over the bunch and Dede and I had made it into a front group of 8. The big news was that race leader Jeannie Longo had missed the break while second placed Diana Ziliute was present and so Ziliute had big motivation to ride hard. Her teammate Zita Urbonaite was also in the break and the two of them drove it hard. I stood to benefit from the break as well - if we could gain more than 1 min 33 seconds then I would also overtake Longo in the overall standings and take over second place. So Dede and I were motivated to ride hard too. The other riders in the break were Ina Teutenberg, Sarah Ulmer( Elita), Megan Hughes (Great Britain) and Vera Hohlfeld (Germany). They were hoping for stage victories and everyone in the break contributed to the hard work of riding in the wind.

It was a long, long day of windy riding and I didn't feel that great. I ate a Powerbar, 6 Gu's, 3 bottles of sports drink and 2 bottles of coke - and I needed every bit of it! In the bunch behind, Longo and the Timex team chased hard for ever and ever. They brought our lead back to 38 seconds at one point but we maintained the pressure and gradually our gap grew. With 15 kms to go we had 4 minutes on the chasing bunch.

On the climb to the finish, Ziliute attacked and Zita Urbonaite and I were the only ones to stay with her. I was hoping to outsprint Ziliute for the stage victory but she was too speedy for me in the finish and I had to settle for second place. Dede came in the next little group in 7th place. Meanwhile, Longo attacked the bunch on the final climb and rode solo to the finish, 2 minutes and 31 seconds behind us for 9th place.

So Ziliute now has the overall lead of the tour, 1 minute and 37 seconds in front of me. Longo is now in third place overall. Now we just have to plot a way to take the lead from Ziliute! 5 days to go!

Karen Kurreck's report

Today was a hard day at the office! It also happened to be my birthday and it was a tough way to spend it. It was the longest stage of the race at 84 miles. This wouldn't have been so bad except that we had about a 30mph headwind or cross/headwind the whole way! It took about 1 hour longer than this stage did last year when there was a tailwind the whole way. People who got dropped early in the crosswind finished well over an hour behind. I think for the first time in the race, they enforced a time cut, although I think they were somewhat lenient in the cutoff time.

Less than 10 miles into the race, a break got away in the wind with Diana Ziliute, Zita Urbonite, Anna Wilson, Dede Demet Barry, Ina Teutenberg, Sarah Ulmer, Vera Hohfeld and a British rider. I'm sure Saturn had it planned - I should have guessed when I saw them warming up on trainers for the start of an 84 mile RR! They just started driving at the front in the gutter and teammates in the line sat up. They got a gap intially and must have been riding really hard because it seemed the chase got organized pretty quickly and they still gained 1 1/2 minutes really fast.

Longo missed out, but her team isn't really strong enough to bring back a serious break. Lots of other teams missed out too, but Timex had a lot to lose with Kim and Mari in 4th and 5th overall, so their whole team was chasing. Henny wanted our team to help too, so chase we did - for 70 miles and the gap kept creeping up. When everyone was rotating smoothly and steadily, the gap would slowly creep down a little but every time other riders got in the way, or someone sat up for a tad, we would lose what we gained and then some. Longo would take a few long, hard pulls (actually disrupting the paceline more than helping it), then disappear to the back for a long time.

WIth about 20 miles to go, the British decided that their GC riders were getting overtaken and started going REALLY hard. It was almost worse for the chase though, because they would pull so hard the field would shatter in the crosswind and then they would regroup a bit to collect their teammates and so the pace wasn't steady.

With 4 miles to go, there was a climb of about 1.5-2 miles and Longo attacked at the bottom and the group shattered. The gap to the break at this point was close to 4 min. All the riders who had been working in the chase got shelled and along with some who weren't. Longo finished alone with Lyne Bessette and Jolanta Polikevicuite shortly behind and then it was lots of small groups 20 sec or so apart.

The break also shattered on the climb with Anna, Diana and Zita pulling away from the rest. Diana narrowly took the stage win over Anna and took over the overall from Longo by over 2 minutes. Anna moved up to 2nd overall and there was more GC shuffling in the top 15.

Karen's report courtesy of racereport@vcnet.com