sprint for 3rd - 200 meters to go!
Matt and Jack put on a show for us and I wanted to take a quick time out from the busy week to say "thank you" for all the teammates and parents that have been out there cheering them on.
For those that missed the action, here's what I saw: 7:30pm start time, the premier start time for the night. Seventy 13-14 year olds lined up for a 20 lap, 20km, 7 corner, 1 inside sweeper USA Road National Criterium Championships. The whole team pre-rode this course in the morning but by the time the snow fencing went up it was one of the most technical courses we had seen in a long time. "Be at the front" was the team chant!
Unfortunately there were 3 crashes in the first lap. Insane. We saw road race winner Phillip O'Donnell and 3rd place road race finisher Grant Parks coming through the last corner with a 15 second lead on the 1st lap! Zeke Mostov (San Jose) was in chase, Matt Valencia behind him. Zeke went 100% to bridge, while Matt chased but also saw that three riders were coming up behind him so he waited and then went to work on the chase. That's heads up racing! The two leaders were absolutely flying. Philip and Grant caught the field ("lapped") but could not catch Matt and the four man chase. Coming into one lap to go Jack leapt out of the field and bridged across to Matt. He was flying!
Philip O'Donnell won his 2nd championship in two races, Grant crashed in the last lap and ran across the line for 2nd, Matt took 3rd in the sprint and ended up 5th. 2nd trip to the podium for the 2nd day in a row! Jack came across in 7th after his massive effort at the end of the race. I could not be more proud of how Matt and Jack rode tonight!
USA Cycling coverage and details of Bend- Day 1 road race, with a nice picture of Matt and Jack http://usacycling.org/news/user/story.php?id=5068
Periodic Blog updates and a few photos www.http://teamspecializedracing.blogspot.com/
FaceBook updates (you do not need to have an account to view pictures and stories)http://www.facebook.com/TeamSpecializedRacing
Time trialing tomorrow! Larry
No comments:
Post a Comment