Moninger, Jeanson win at ‘toona
- By VeloNews.com
- Published Jul. 31, 2005
With a handful of time bonuses and some tight GC races to be settled at the International Tour de Toona, Sunday’s final criterium stage proved exciting for both the men and women, and resulted in changes to the overall classification.
Greg Henderson (Health Net-Maxxis) took the final stage criterium. As expected, teammate Scott Moninger maintained his yellow jersey – his second overall win at the Tour de ‘Toona – having won it back in 1994. In the women’s race, the bonuses had a far more significant impact as Geneviève Jeanson (The Bicycle Store/RONA) moved into the overall lead as Tina Pic (Quark)the stage win.
Men
With 55 seconds in time bonuses, Health Net and Colavita – Sutter Homes ushered their riders to the front and took control from the gun, sweeping the time bonuses every fifth lap in the 30-lap race. Mark McCormack was able to overcome his 1-second deficit on general classification to Hugh Moran (Aerospace), who couldn’t answer Colavita’s horsepower and had to settle for third place overall.
Moninger didn’t even try for any of the time bonus sprints.
“We did the math,” said Moninger. “Even if someone won all four plus the stage, that wasn’t even half the time they needed for the [overall] win.”
It was Henderson’s second stage win this week.
“It gets dangerous in the last couple of laps when everyone is fighting for position, cause you really need to be second or third around that last corner,” said the New Zealander. “But everyone wants to be second or third around that last corner.”
McCormack won the first two time bonuses on lap five and ten, giving him eight seconds of bonus time, while Moran only managed to snatch a one second time bonus. This put McCormack into second place on the GC, seven seconds ahead of Moran, who wasn’t surprised by the turn of events.
“It was pretty much a David verses Goliath thing, and we’re not living in biblical times as much as some would like to think,” said Moran, who is from Lakeland, Florida. But third overall wasn’t bad considering Moran hit a police officer the day before in the last kilometer, sending the officer to the ground.
“I tried to go between him the car,” said Moran, referring to the SUV that breached the police-controlled intersection as himself, McCormack, and Justin England (Health Net) were winding up their sprint.
“I hit him pretty hard – I smacked him – I laid him out on the ground, and I didn’t even hit the ground,” said Moran with an aura of hindsight-induced bravado.
Moran couldn’t help but make light of the odd situation. “He was protecting and serving, sort of,” he said with a grin.
McCormack was able to avoid the mishap by chalking it up to reaction time.
“I saw him coming at us and I was like, ‘Well, I was just thinking I would go out out out, and hope he’ll see me soon enough to hit the brakes, because I knew I couldn’t stop in time, which is exactly what happened to Justin because he hit his brakes as hard as he could and he went straight into it,” said McCormack. “My theory was I would rather get hit from the side and bumped away cause the car was going probably 20 mile an hour, as opposed to me going 34 and plowing straight into a metal vehicle. Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt.”
McCormack said he put in a 31-hour training week to prepare for ‘Toona.
“Considering the mountains that are here and the quality of Health Net riders, I am not at all disappointed,” said McCormack.
WomenIn the women’s race, Pic took the final stage avoiding a crash about 200 meters before the finish that sent Nicole Freedman (Ford-Basis) to the pavement.
But it was Jeanson who lit up the afterburners and was able to overcome her three-second deficit to steal the yellow jersey from Christine Thorburn (Webcor).
Jeanson aggressively picked up the first two four-second time bonuses on laps five and ten. But Thorburn was hot on her heels and was third across the line both times, attenuating the deficit to only six seconds, and making Jeanson the yellow jersey on the road by three seconds.
But with five laps to go and the second-to-the-last time bonus up for grabs, Jeanson crashed when she hit the back wheel of Thorburn while exiting the chicane section.
“I was on Christine’s wheel because for the last two intermediates [time bonuses] she wanted to take it from the [corner] just like I did before,” explained Jeanson. “But the wind changed and she had a headwind, so I knew I couldn’t start first. She took it first but missed her corner and I was on her outside and she took me down.”
Thorburn, who went on to take the 4-second time bonus – narrowing Jeanson’s lead to one second with five laps to go – had no idea Jeanson had just crashed.
“I didn’t know she crashed because I didn’t hear any metal behind me,” said Thorburn afterwards, not realizing at the time Jeanson’s crash was a relatively silent one into the hay bales. “It was basically myself, Geneviève, and Annette sprinting for those time bonuses. Kimberly Baldwin should have been too, but she doesn’t have much of a jump,” said Thorburn, who ended up in second place overall by only one second, the closest margin of loss in ‘Toona history.
After the race Jeanson was holding her ribs and said she was very hurt. “Ifell into my handlebars. So for a second, I thought I would not finish. But I guess the adrenaline pumped up….but now I know I’m gonna be sore,” she said.
The crash caused a huge gap back to the field. And after Thorburn and Annette Beutler (Quark) crossed the line; both wondered why they had a 300-meter gap on the field. But on the next lap with four to go, Jeanson jettisoned out of the pit and rejoined the field near the front of the race. Luckily for the Canadian national road champion, it was the last lap that the free-lap rule was in effect.
Though Thorburn managed to narrow the gap to one second, she needed to finish first or second in the final sprint in order to keep her yellow jersey, and without Jeanson finishing in the top three.
“The first two sprints I won, I started from the very first corner and I held it up all the way to the line,” said Jeanson. “As the race went on, the wind switch, so I had to change my strategy. I think by winning the first two sprints, I took some wind out of her.”
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