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Sea Otter Classic - NE
Monterey, California, USA, March 21 - 24, 2002
Stage 3 - March 22: Fort Ord road race, 123km/184km (W/M)
Results Previous stage Next stage
Palmer-Komar Surprises, Is Chris Horner Superman?
By Steve Edwards in Monterey
"I mean, he's not Superman. He's gotta get tired sooner or later." These were there words uttered yesterday by the yellow jersey, US Postal Services' David Zabriskie, about Chris Horner, his closest challenger. It was not the only prophetic statement to be issued, as Rona's Amy Jarvis pointed at a new team rider that had been dropped in the crit. "Remember the name Karen Bockel. You're going to be hearing a lot about her."
The Men
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Perhaps it was the driving rain, or perhaps it was because all eyes were trained on Prime Alliance's Chris Horner, but somehow a large break got clear early in the race that held some dangerous threats on the GC, as well as nobody from the defenders of the yellow jersey.
"We knew a break would go early," said marked man Horner. "We made a plan to have someone in that move. We wanted it to be Danny Pate."
Bolstered by a passel of Mercury, 7up/Nutra Fig, and Navigator riders, a gap slowly formed until it had a couple of minutes. With two of Horner's Prime Alliance team present, including Pate, is was exactly as he'd intended it to go.
"We had to get Postal Service in trouble early," he explained. "It was a plus for us that Saturn missed the move too. With Danny in there we had a guy that could win, even if the break didn't come back."
With Saturn and Postal sharing the work, it took a long time to put any kind of dent in the lead. It hovered around 2 minutes for most of the race. Pate explained the strategy:
"With me in the break it meant that we never had to chase. With me still a GC threat then if worse came to worse and the break stayed away, I would try and ride away."
The chase finally paid off and the gap started to close with just over a lap remaining. "They sold out for their teams and brought it back," said Horner. "But it did some damage."
Mercury's Henk Vogels launched off the front as soon as the field came back together. He gained 40 seconds before the counters started. Horner then made his move, "I didn't see Zabriskie doing anything to bring it back so I knew he must have been tired," assessed Horner. "So I just punched it from there." It was a moment where Zabriskie must have been questioning his assessment, as "Superman" rode off with his yellow jersey.
He caught Vogels in seemingly no time. The duo started working together and within a few kilometers had increased the lead to three minutes. The cooked field did their best to bring it down but couldn't get it under two minutes. On the final climb, Horner left Vogels without much protest, "We were going steady up the climb,« he said, "And he more or less just said 'good luck,' and I just kept going."
Vogels hung on for second place. Soren Peterson attacked off the final climb to grab third, rewarding Saturn with a place on the podium.
On his chances in tomorrow's stage, Horner seemed confident. "Two and a half minutes is a lot of time to take out over 50 miles," he said. "There's always some danger but that's why today I didn't back off. I wanted as much time as possible."
If Postal wants that jersey back, they'd better bring some Kryptonite.
The Women
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It seems like Steve Prefontaine has been reincarnated as a female cyclist. His name is now Genevieve Jeanson. Pre used to like to run in front, no matter what it did to him and his chances. This style cost the "greatest American distance runner" to lose some important races. But to him, the point wasn't to win as much as to do your best. Running as hard as he could was the only way he knew how to do this.
Today, Jeanson had a lead of more than a minute and a half on Saturn's big three. After a very hard day yesterday, she was tired and could bet on an early attack. Instead of waiting to see what they had in store for her and using her team to counter, she took off alone and rode as hard as she could. Whether or not this is smart racing can be debated, but it certainly gets big points on the cool scale.
Meanwhile, her pursuers were going about their business in a professional manner. Judith Arndt, Lyne Bessette, and Kim Bruckner swapped pulls to keep Jeanson within range. Tagging along with the Saturn train were Kim Anderson of Cannondale/USA, Sue Palmer Kolmar or Talgo America, and first-year-pro-second-year-bike-rider Karen Bockel of Rona, who's plan was merely to bog down the chase.
"I was just sitting on them (Saturn)," she said. "Trying to make them work."
And work they did.
"Teamwork was the word of the day," said Bessette as she explained how the day went. "I got dropped trying to chase Genevieve so I waited for these two (Bruckner, Arndt), and then we worked together and caught her with one and a half laps left. Judith pulled the last 3 km so that I was fresh when we got to her. I attacked as soon as we caught Genevieve, with Kim on my wheel."
With Jeanson unable to respond, Bockel kept going hoping her teammate would recover. On the final climb, with Jeanson out of gas, Rona's coach Andre Aubut told Bockel to attack. She then dropped all but Palmer-Komar and the two entered the Laguna Seca raceway to battle out the win. With Bockel leading around a turn, she unexpectedly crashed on the wet track and Palmer-Komar cruised in for the win. She only suffered some road rash and had no explanation for the crash, "I felt pretty solid and my back wheel just slipped out." For Palmer-Komar, it was a big win for another team that's been racing very well in the early season.
Bessette finished shortly afterward, moving her into first on the GC. Bruckner finished 5th and moved into second. Jeanson finished around 8 minutes back, basically dropping her from GC contention. Bruckner, fresh from a week off, may have been in first if she hadn't flatted in the time trial. This didn't seem to effect the jovial mood at Saturn.
"I was following Redlands on the web," she said. "And now it's so exciting be up there, with all of us working against her (Jeanson). We're all strong, and it doesn't matter who wins."
With tomorrow's stage one that "usually finishes in a field sprint," it seems like the win will go to the consistent Bessette, who only wanted to praise her team,
"I got dropped on one little hill and she (Judith) said 'come on, you've gotta fight for it', and I got back on and thought, if I'm going to be dead in a few km I might as well just work as hard as I can. Then my legs felt better and better."
This chink in her armor was in contrast to her coach's statement, "I don't think Lyne has bad days," to which Arndt replied, "No, she has bad minutes."
"That's true," added Bruckner. "Then she gets even stronger."
Photography
Images by Rob Karman/www.roadbikephotos.com
- Chris Horner (Prime Alliance) smiles before the race
- The early break built a strong lead before the peloton gave chase
- The break, more-or-less working together to stay away
- US Postal leads the chase
- Dave Zebriskie (US Postal) was instrumental in reeling in the early break
- Chris Horner (Prime Alliance) solos to victory
- Genevieve Jeanson (RONA) attacked early but cracked after Saturn retaliated
- The Saturn-propelled chase group
- The break starts to split up
- Sue Palmer-Komar (TalgoAmerica) took the chances when they came for a fine win
Results - unofficial
Men 1 Chris Horner (USA) Prime Alliance 2 Henk Vogels (Aus) Mercury 3 Soren Petersen (Den) Saturn 4 Danny Pate (USA) Prime Alliance 5 Damon Kluck (USA) Saturn General classification after stage 3 1 Chris Horner (USA) Prime Alliance 2 Henk Vogels (Aus) Mercury Women 1 Susan Palmer-Komar (Can) TalgoAmerica 2 Karen Bockel (Ger) RONA 3 Lyne Bessette (Can) Saturn 0.20 4 Kim Anderson (USA) Cannondale-USA 0.40 5 Kim Bruckner (USA) Saturn 1.40 6 Judith Arndt (Ger) Saturn 6.00 7 Geneviève Jeanson (Can) RONA 8.00 General classification after stage 3 1 Lyne Bessette (Can) Saturn 2 Kim Bruckner (USA) Saturn 3 Susan Palmer-Komar (Can) TalgoAmerica 4 Karen Bockel (Ger) RONA ... 6 Geneviève Jeanson (Can) RONA
