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The Kimberly Bruckner Journal 2004
Like many top riders, 2001 US road champion Kimberly Bruckner has the Athens Olympics in her sights as she returns to racing after surgery for a soft-tissue tumour in her ankle cut short her 2003 season. With her T-Mobile squad in its second year, her diary this year will document the highs and lows of the US' top women's team.
Int. Thüringen-Rundfahrt der Frauen
Hot, hot, hot
Stage 2 - July 21: Zeulenroda - Greiz
I rather enjoy the daily schedule of this race. The stages don't start until around 1:45 or 1:30pm. Breakfast is from 7-9am, which allows us a leisurely breakfast and then time to sit around the room, check our email on our Blackberries (which are VERY handy little devices by the way), stretch, and slowly get ready for the race. The odd thing to us Americans is that the hotel starts serving a hot lunch to the riders at 10:45am. None of us are big pasta eaters and a hot lunch just never sounds very appetizing. We usually make an extra sandwich with eggs or cold cuts at breakfast and just bring that with us. But maybe the pasta lunch is the big key to success and we're missing out.
Our stage started in the market square of Zeulenroda, so just a 15 minute bike ride from our hotel. I believe about 120 women started the race today and Karin Thurig from Switzerland was in the yellow jersey. T-Mobile's Kristin Armstrong started today in the climber's jersey with her third place finish in the TT yesterday. That was a bit unfortunate for her in the feed zone. Our British soigneur, Pete, was holding out bottles for the T-Mobile girls and as Kristin came swooping in to grab a drink from him, he pulled it back at the last second because he didn't recognize her jersey and didn't want to give it to another rider. Luckily, our workhorse, Lara, had a bottle to give her as a replacement. It was surprisingly hot and humid and we were going through the drinks like sieves.
Our race plan didn't quite work out as hoped, mainly because the speed throughout the entire race was kept very high. It felt like a motor pacing session to me. And with the relentless climbs and descents, I felt like I was working very hard just to keep my position in the bunch. In the midst of the race, I started realizing that most of the women racing had just come from the 10-day Giro d'Italia Femminile. These women were Giro fit! Which is very different from Cascade Classic fit... where the T-Mobile girls had come from. No doubt, Cascade provided us with some great fitness. But American racing is a very different type of racing than European racing, where the speeds are high the entire race through. I needed about a week of motor pacing before this! But I think we'll feel better each day as the race goes on.
The first sprints of the day were at 24km and 36km. It quickly became apparent that the Australian National Team was gunning for these. They have an incredible team and work so well together. I even think in one sprint, Aussies were 1-3 for the points. After the sprints, Amber and Christine did their best to try and force a break. But unfortunately, with the high pace and determined women, nothing was sticking. Christine rode so well today. She was really impressive. Prior to Thuringen, she's only raced one "European" race and that was 2003 World's in Hamilton, Canada. And I've been told she raced really well there too. She stayed near the front all day and looked super strong. It's great being teammates with her.
The first QOM came at 84km and it was a surprisingly hard drag uphill for about 2km. I saw Fabiana Luperini attack about midway up. Yes, I saw her. But with my position and how I was feeling at the time, I could only watch her ride away. There was absolutely nothing I could do about it. Modesta Vzesniauskaite (don't ask me to pronounce that) and Rasa Polikevicute went with her... .three good climbers. That shook things up with girls trying to bridge to them. For awhile, a substantial chase group formed with about eight girls in it, but was soon brought back by the peloton. The three stayed away for the remainder of the race, with no one really chasing full-on.
About 15km from the finish, we raced into the town of Greiz, through the finish line, and then up a steep 2km climb that wound through the village. This climb split the field a bit. I think we had about a group of 50 that raced into the finish vying for fourth place. It was a classic finish with lots of corners in the town, through roundabouts, and over cobbles. Polikevicute won the sprint out of the break to take first, with Modesta and Luperini in second and third. Katia Longhin of Pasta Zara won the field sprint for fourth. Since the break was only 35" ahead of the field by the finish, Karin Thurig retained her leader's jersey for another day.
Amber and Christine rode really well today for the team, but I think the rest of us were still suffering from jet lag and a lack of speed in the legs. It was good to have a day to get into race mode, and hopefully now we'll be more on top of our game. Hopefully the rain holds off as well!
