Eisel, Teutenberg go 2-0 at Triple Crown in Reading
- By John Wilcockson
- Published Jun. 7, 2007
T-Mobile’s Bernhard Eisel and Ina Teutenberg are well on their way to clinching the Commerce Bank Triple Crown of Cycling after they both won Thursday afternoon’s Reading Classic in central Pennsylvania. They also won the first leg of the Triple Crown series last Sunday in Lancaster.
One big difference between Sunday and Thursday was the weather. Following tropical rainfall that drenched the men in Lancaster, the 172 starters enjoyed sunshine, low humidity and 80-degree temperatures in Reading for the second edition of the Reading Classic.
The change in the weather didn’t faze Eisel, the rugged Austrian who has a reputation as a sprinter, but showed that he is more than just a fast finisher. In rainy Lancaster, he won in a two-man finish from Navigator Insurance’s Uzbekistan rider Sergey Lagutin, while his victory in sunny Reading ahead of Rite Aid’s new Argentinean star Alejandro Borrajo was out of a 29-man lead group — but it wasn’t a conventional mass finish.
“I just wake up with 1K to go,” said Eisel, as his T-Mobile teammates gave him high fives minutes after the finish. “I was last in my group, and I thought it can’t be possible. You have to like to win when you’re so far in the back, so I said to myself, ‘Move up, move up, move up.’ And I passed them all with 400 meters to go, and I said, ‘Okay, take all the risks you can.’ If you make it first to that corner you’ve got the race. And I got it. I’m lucky.”
Although “lucky” Eisel’s effort on the fast downhill into the second-last turn gave him the lead 340 meters from the line, he still had to make it safely though the final turn a block later, and then hang on up the long uphill straightaway on Penn Street. But the Austrian — who’s fighting for a place on the T-Mobile Tour de France squad — was 10 bike lengths clear at the line.
Eisel’s effort took the others completely by surprise. So Borrajo’s excellent sprint, ahead of Navigator pair Oleg Grishkin and Lagutin, was only good enough for second place. The top North American finishers were Québecois Charles Dionne (Colavita Olive Oil-Sutter Home) in fifth and Californian Kayle Leogrande (Rock Racing) in sixth.
The presence of such a stocky rider as Leogrande in the front group was a surprise for many because the organizers decided to send the men’s field up the 1.5-mile climb of Mount Penn on the final three laps, compared with just once last year. A series of six switchbacks at the bottom of the hill are steep enough to challenge the best riders, but it then levels off. And as Borrajo said, “It’s a power rider’s climb.”
Until the race reached Mont Penn on the eighth of 10 laps, Canadian Christian Meier (Symmetrics), Dane Kasper Klostergaard (CSC) and Colombian Javier Zapata (Caico) held a one-minute lead for half of the 75-mile race. Zapata held on to be first over the KOM the first time ahead of fellow Colombian Gregorio Ladino (Tecos-Trek) — but the South Americans couldn’t hang on when the “power” riders split the front group even further on the last ascent 3 miles from the finish.
“The climb was really hard that last time,” Borrajo said through a translator. “I knew I had to be in the top 10 at the top if I was gonna have a chance because there was no chance to move up on the descent. It was so fast.”
Last year’s winner Greg Henderson, who moved from Health Net to T-Mobile this season, was one who didn’t quite make it back to the front group after the climb. “We got within 20 meters by the last corner, but it was too late to do anything then,” he said. Henderson crossed the line in 30th place.
While New Zealander Henderson and his teammates, Italian Marco Pinotti, Brit Roger Hammond and German Eric Baumann, all contributed to Eisel’s victory, women’s winner Teutenberg had just one T-Mobile teammate to help her — Texan Kim Anderson. And one was enough in the 14-lap, 25-mile women’s event, raced at the foot of Mount Penn.
The squat, blonde 32-year-old Teutenberg took the win by a clear bike length over U.S. criterium champion Theresa Cliff Ryan (Verducci-Breakaway), with Laura Van Gilder (Cheerwine) a close-up third in the uphill sprint.
Teutenberg had already won the first leg of Pennsylvania’s Triple Crown last Sunday in Lancaster, taking the mass-sprint finish from Van Gilder. And the T-Mobile veteran will almost certainly retain her overall Triple Crown title in Sunday’s Liberty Classic in Philadelphia, where her biggest rival for the race win should be her countrywoman, 2006 Philly winner Regina Schleicher (Team Nürnberger), who is racing this week in the Grand Tour du Montréal.
Also in Canada this week before coming to Philadelphia is the rest of the T-Mobile squad, headed by Australian Oenone Wood, who was leading the race going into the final stage. In their absence at Reading, Teutenberg had just Anderson to help.
“Kim did the job of three people today,” said Teutenberg, “so I think I was okay. I tried to attack but it’s hard to get away on this course because the straightaways are really long. And the [uphill] finish is really hard. It doesn’t look much, but when you’re sprinting it’s tough.”
After Anderson had kept the pace fast on the final lap of the rolling, 1.79-mile circuit with Van Gilder’s Cheerwine teammate Sarah Uhl, Teutenberg came from fourth wheel at the final turn to take a clear line on the left side of Reading’s Penn Street.
Cliff Ryan, a multi-time world inline skating champion from Cedar Springs, Michigan, was having a harder time getting through in the center of the road.
“I was sitting in good position coming around the corner,” said the 28-year-old national crit champ, “but somehow, up the straight, [after] everyone took the corner pretty fast and it kind of jammed up, I got boxed and had to wait a little too long for a spot to open up. But it was still a good sprint, good to mix it up with Ina and Laura. I just really love it.”
The same reaction came from the residents of Reading, who came out in their thousands to watch the race all around the men’s 6.77-mile circuit, while real enthusiasts, most on pro-quality bikes, gathered on Mount Penn’s 700-foot summit.
“It was like a world-championship course,” said Eisel. “Maybe next year they’ll take us up the climb 10 times. I’d like that, even though I wouldn’t win.”
But no one witnessing his two gritty performances to take back-to-back wins in the hills of Pennsylvania would bet against the rugged Austrian. Maybe he’ll make it a hat trick in Philadelphia this coming Sunday.
Commerce Bank Reading Classic
Reading, PA. June 7
Pro men
1. Bernhard Eisel (A), T-Mobile, 75 miles in 2:48:54
2. Alejandro Barrajo (Arg), Rite Aid
3. Oleg Grishkin (Rus), Navigators Insurance
4. Sergey Lagutin (Uzb), Navigators Insurance
5. Charles Dionne (Can), Colavita-Sutter Home
6. Kayle Leogrande, Rock Racing
7. Rory Sutherland (Aus), Health Net-Maxxis
8. John Freddy Parra (Col), Tecos-Trek
9. Martin Pedersen (Dk), CSC
10. Caleb Manion, Toyota-United, all s.t.
Pro women
1. Ina Teutenberg (G), T-Mobile, 25 miles in 1:02:57
2. Theresa Cliff Ryan, Verducci-Breakaway
3. Laura Van Gilder, Cheerwine
4. Sarah Caravella, Aaron’s
5. Laura Yoisten, Webcor Builders, all s.t.
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John Wilcockson
Former VeloNews editor at large John Wilcockson has reported on the Tour de France for more than forty years. He is also the author of a dozen books, including 23 Days in July, one of ESPN’s “Top 10 Sports Books of the Year.”