Who's who in the Tour of Cali women's Time Trial
by Sarah Connolly on May 19, 2011 12:11 PM EDT
in Women's Cycling
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PrintFriday 20th May 2011
The Tour of California's women's time trial has probably been one of the most talked-about races of the season - and evidence that sometimes, if fans aren't happy about things, race organisers will listen and make changes.
So tomorrow it's time for the actual race - 13 riders specialising in road, track and triathlon, who ride for American-ish teams, representing 5 countries and racing for a $10,000 pot - and it will apparently be featured as part of the Versus TV coverage - with the feed shared with all the other TV companies as usual, so we should all get to see it. The women will ride the same 15 miles (24km) course as the men in Solvang, at 11:30, an hour before the men's race starts (and I have to admit, it WILL be interesting to get a compare-and-contrast! As long as the prize money wasn't based on it, and of course, with all the caveats about it not being a fair comparison, I would LOVE to know how many of the men the world-class women can beat! Especially how many of their male team-mates the riders from HTC-Highroad and Garmin-Cervélo can beat!)
Below I'll tell you who's riding, and what we know about them - and of course, anything YOU find about the race, add it into the comments! As usual, that will be the place for results, photos, blogs, videos and anything else we find!
EDIT! You can follow the action in real time through Podium Insight's @Podium_Live twitter account! Thanks Lyne!
So, with 13 riders responding to the invitation, who do we have? I'm going to be brave (stupid) and start with the riders I'd expect to see at the top of the rankings after the race. Feel free to point and laugh afterwards...
Emma Pooley (Great Britain) Garmin-Cervélo
If it weren't for the fact that this will be the first race she's ridden since she broke her collarbone just before the Fleche Wallonne, Pooley would have to be the favourite. She's the current World Time Trial Champion and ITT silver medallist in the Beijing Olympics, which she combines with killer climbing abilities, insane breakaway skills... and a PhD in geotechnical engineering in the off-season! Her form has been spectacular this year, up until her crash. But we don't know when she arrived in the USA, so if there's any jetlag, or how long she's been back on her bike....
Amber Neben (USA) HTC-Highroad
Like Pooley, Neben has been a World ITT Champion, in 2008 - and like Pooley, she is a rider who's been interviewed by our own Gavia, which always is a bonus (Neben's interview is here - Pooley's is here). She's had a dramatic career - including a suspension for doping (contaminated products, agreed the USADA panel), overcoming skin cancer, numerous crashes and her team 2010 collapsing - but she's back in the pro-peloton, where this year her time trial wins contributed to her winning her USA-based races - the San Dimas Stage Race and the Redlands Classic - and she was part of HTC's conquering TTT team at the City Trophy Elsy Jacobs... She'll want to win at home, so look out!
EDIT! Neben is being hardcore, riding the Chrono Gatineau on the Thursday (she came third) and then immediately hopping onto a 'plane and flying to Cali, so she may be a bit tired. But still - huge respect to her! I love that kind of rider!
Evelyn Stevens (USA) HTC-Highroad
Mind you, Neben's team-mate, Evie Stevens, will give her a run for their money. She only started cycling in 2007, leaving a high-paying Wall Street job behind her, so she doesn't have the long palmares of a lot of the riders here (you can read all about her in Gavia's interview with her - and you really should, because this woman has a fascinating story). She'll be the one in the stars and stripes of the USA Time Trial Champion, and she came second behind Neben at Redlands...
Kristin Armstrong (USA) Peanut Butter & Co TWENTY 12
Armstrong won the World Time Trial Championships in 2006 and 2009, and was Olympic gold medallist in the TT in 2008. She retired at the end of the 2009 season, to have a baby (she and the team do post adorable photos of baby Lucas turning up at races and generally being part of the team) - but the call of the Olympics is a strong one, so she's back! She's racing with PB2012 on the USA domestic circuit this season, where she won all three stages (and of course the GC) of the Sea Otter Classic - so this is a chance to benchmark her against some of the European-based riders
Tara Whitten (Canada) Tibco: To the Top!
Tara Whitten is a total track superstar! She's the current and 2010 omnium champion on the track (riders race 6 events, three bunch races and three time trials), and won the 2010 points race as well. You might wonder, then, why she's racing the ITT - but she's got some great results in road Time Trials - winning the 2010 Commonwealth Games ITT, and coming 7th in the 2010 World ITT Championships. She's definitely got her eye on winning the omnium on the track at the London Olympics, but she may also be a serious competitor for the TT gold as well. Like Pooley, she's also completing a PhD - this one in neuroscience, and she's only been cycling for about three years, after 10 years as a cross-country skier. It'll be very interesting to see how she performs on this course...
So who will be fighting those five for the top spot?
Emilia Fahlin (Sweden) HTC-Highroad
It has been pointed out that HTC is full of national champions, and Fahlin is another one of them. At just 22, she's been the Swedish TT Champion for the last two years (and Swedish road champion in '08), and came second in the European u23 ITT Champs in '09 and '10 - and 9th in the 2010 ITT Worlds.
Here's Fahlin talking about what she's looking forward to about the Cali TT:
Charlotte Becker (Germany) HTC-Highroad
Last year you'd find Becker as a mainstay of Cervélo's all-conquering Team Time Trial team - this year she moved to HTC, where she helped them win the Luxembourg TTT - the one in the rain and the dark, lit only by streetlights. She's the German road champion, and last year won the GP de Valladolid round of the Road World Cup. The ITT may be a little hilly for her, but she'll still be giving it her all
Alison Tetrick Starnes (USA) Peanut Butter & Co TWENTY 12
Alison Starnes is a rider you might have heard of from her blogging - she's one of those riders who give us great insights into what life is actually like on the road (her blogs from her recent stint of riding in Belgium and the Netherlands are full of the culture shock of meeting the hard, flat, windy Dutch-style of racing for the first time - I did like points 14-20 in her things she learned post!) Here's what she has to say about Solvang
Amanda Miller (USA) HTC-Highroad
By now, you may have noticed that all of HTC's Team Time Trial team will be racing at Solvang, apart from German TT Champ, Judith Arndt - and Miller is their third American. She's new to HTC this team, and has been loving the European season.
Miller rides cyclocross in the off-season, and this year, won a stage in the Tour of New Zealand and the Merco Classic. I met her in Luxembourg - and here's my mini video interview, where she answers whether she's really is "the future of American cycling":
So, onto my final section - riders I (shamefully) don't know much about, as they're either not roadies, or are USA domestic riders - as ever, if you know more, add it to the comments, but with two triathletes, we should find out how DOES a triathlete compare to a cyclist on a TT course?
Heather Jackson (USA): Played ice-hockey before turning to triathlon... 2nd Place, Oceanside 70.3 Triathlon – 2011; Holds numerous Ironman 70.3 bike course records
Rhae-Christie Shaw (Canada): Winner, Madera SR, Stage 2 Time Trial – 2011; 2nd Place, SRAM Tour of the Gila Time Trial – 2011; 2nd Place, Sea Otter Classic Time Trial – 2011; 3rd Place, Hawaii 70.3 Triathlon (bike course record) – 2009
Jessica Phillips (USA) Colavita - Forno d'Asolo: US National Time Trial Champion – 2009; 7th SRAM Tour of the Gila – 2011; 14th World Championships, Time Trial – 2009; US National Road Champion – 2002
Janel Holcomb (USA) Colavita - Forno d'Asolo: 3rd Place, SRAM Tour of the Gila Time Trial, 2011
So those are the riders.... the race itself starts at 11:30 Pacific USA (14:30 USA Eastern; 20:30 CEST) but we don't know when it will be on tv (we were initially told that there'd be 20 minutes of coverage, but that may have dropped to ten) - but it would make sense for the women's race to be covered at the start of the tv coverage?
As always, any more information you can find, please please add it to the comments!
All photos from the relevant teams' websites
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Alison Starnes rocks.
She’ll podium if not win.
I no longer know what my limits are - Philippe Gilbert
I've just read her piece on the race
And afterwards I felt that I should have done it standing up with my hand on my heart, quietly whistling Deutschland Uber Alles..
If Armstrong is as strong as she used to be and on good form
She’s miles better than the rest of these women, hands down. The only question is the long layoff and the amount of kilometers she has in the legs. I’d love to see her win this one.
Focus on easy first. If that's all you get, that ain't half bad - Caballo Blanco
If she takes Olga Z as her role model
she’ll be flying
It still bothers me that this contest will be used to compare the men's times and the women's.
Most of the men in this race have responsibilities to their teams other than to not get “girled”. If they don’t try hard in the TT it’s because they put forth big efforts in the preceding days or will be called on to do some serious domestique duties in the next days stage up Mt. Baldy. Most of the men riders who take the start tomorrow are serious professionals who won’t be at all concerned about who beats them in a TT. They will be focused on their teams overall success.
Sign seen at entrance of local bike shop, " \o/ spoken here.". - Okay, I made it up, but wouldn't that be cool?
right--so, where's the problem?
Unless it bothers you that some of the women will have faster times than some of the men, who are not going “all out.” So far as I can tell, you’re assigning a shame and a term (“getting girled”) to a situation that you yourself admit the riders won’t be bothering about, and won’t feel ashamed about. So it doesn’t hurt the men, nor the women. As far as the men going easy, or there being no metric at all, that’s not exactly true. Men who want to stay in the race will presumably be working to stay inside of whatever percentage of top finishing time defines the time cut. (Don’t know what time cut they’re using, so this may be only modestly relevant, of course).
"luckily for me i was born with an extremely high hemassholecrit level. no pills needed." -ant1
"As a time trialist it fires me up to see how many men I can ‘girl’," wrote Kristin Armstrong
From the post by Pigeons, all the caveats about it not being a fair comparison, , which is a link to Gavia’s reaction. I don’t think that changing the payout scheme changes the fact that comparing the men and women doesn’t work well. The appeal of women’s racing isn’t that they can beat some of the guys some of the time for what ever reason. Women’s racing in my view is characterized by less negative racing, there is more going on in a race that might be, if raced by men, end up with a controlled break and a sprint finish. There will be no way to portray that in a TT.
The best thing that could come out of this is that peoples curiosity about women’racing is aroused. If that task is left to P&P, and Bobke on Versus I have my doubts it will succeed very well in a TT format.
Sign seen at entrance of local bike shop, " \o/ spoken here.". - Okay, I made it up, but wouldn't that be cool?
I do agree with you that it's not a fair comparison....
(especially because although there are 5 of the best ITTers in the world there, there are an awful lot of world class riders not there – I mean, these are not likely to be the top 13 in the Worlds later in the year, or at the Olympics)
…but I think it will be fun, just once. I totally agree with you, though, that it’s up to the commentators to fire up viewers’ imaginations. The ESPN article I linked to voices some concerns that the AToC could have done more to promote this race – and I know I found it really hard to find any information about the race at all on the AToC website (I linked to a Press Release, and it could be just me, but I just couldn’t find other references to it)
Mind you, that’s where we come in, I guess – if races and parts of the media and teams won’t promote things, that gives us more of an audience. And if Monty and I can put things together to promote races, for free, it makes people who are paid to do it and don’t look even more slack
by Sarah Connolly on May 19, 2011 2:41 PM EDT up reply actions
Maybe there is some way to make your race preview appear in P&P's mailbox before the race.
At least they might have a clue of who is racing then. It’s a great preview, the kind of thing Versus won’t put together.
Sign seen at entrance of local bike shop, " \o/ spoken here.". - Okay, I made it up, but wouldn't that be cool?
If this was a one day race for junior's tagged on,
I’m thinking we’d think it would be cool, even though all of the caveats would be just as relevant. From where I’m sitting? Same diff. We probably get some TV coverage of the women, they automatically get a bit more name recognition.
"luckily for me i was born with an extremely high hemassholecrit level. no pills needed." -ant1
I have no idea how the women will compare to the men
But most short time trials don’t have that big of spreads.
Look at the prologue of the 2010 Tour. Outside of two guys who appear to have crashed, the last guy was less than 2 mins back of Cance who finished with a time of 10 minutes.
Time trials are almost impossible to compare to each other, but the few women’s results I flipped through don’t make it look like the top female time trialists could get within 2 minutes of Cance.
Not that that matters one way or another.
"Oh man, it’s going to take days to kill all these people!"
By spreads I mean the winner's time vs the last place finisher's time by the way
It’s not the guy in last place is soft pedaling.
"Oh man, it’s going to take days to kill all these people!"
I take this analysis back
The course is 15 miles. Times do open quite a bit in men’s races for a 24 km race.
"Oh man, it’s going to take days to kill all these people!"
i wish i was attending.
there’s gonna be a lot of awesomeness there.
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
Really bad news
La Route de France, one of the stage races, has just been announced as cancelled. It’s not like we have a huge amount of women’s racing after the start of May as it is… Bad times.
Karl Lima - Karl N here - you know, Hitec team manager
He tweeted it. I tweeted Gwena and asked if she’s heard anything
by Sarah Connolly on May 19, 2011 5:11 PM EDT up reply actions
It's not on the UCI calendar any more
but I read juust a week or two ago that Volvo had signed up as a sponsor
Here's the
UCI Calendar with no Route de France between the 6th and 14th August
I read
that a small French race at St. Sulpice Lauriére organized by Aacf 87 on 2nd June had been cancelled.
And André Biasin, one of the main organisers of the Tour de l’Ardèche died at the end of April. But I can’t find anything on the French sites at all
I can't find anything about this on any French site
Nothing on Gwena
Nor Roltiss
Nor Courses Feminines Associees (that’s an umbrella site for the Tours of Bretagne, Limousin and Ardeche)
Nor Cyclisme Feminin (but the website is secondary to their magazine)
The race site is pretty awful, but it’s always been that way
Velo Feminin has been quiet for a few months
And I can never navigate the French Federation website
Not sure if their women's cycling news is comparable
but a French cycling news site I see referenced often is http://www.cyclismactu.fr/ > http://www.feminines.cyclismactu.net/
I can't see any news about it on the FFC website
but it’s not listed on their calendar either.
by Skip Madness on May 19, 2011 6:37 PM EDT up reply actions
Oh good
this year’s calendar was getting over-crowded with stage races.
Bloody bollocks.
by Skip Madness on May 19, 2011 6:23 PM EDT up reply actions
Who's missing?
I would have liked to see Clara Hughes, who is having one hell of a comeback (if her performances at Gila, PanAm, and Chrono Gatineau are any gauge), race. She hasn’t lost a time trial yet this year.
Well, last year's ITT Worlds top 20
1. Emma Pooley, GBR
2. Judith Arndt, Ger
3. Linda Villumsen Serup, NZl
4. Amber Neben, USA
5. Jeannie Longo Ciprelli, France
6. Evelyn Stevens, USA
7. Tara Whitten, Canada
8. Shara Gillow, Aus
9. Emilia Fahlin, Swe
10. Tatiana Guderzo, Ita
11. Emma Johansson, Swe
12. Noemi Cantele, Ita
13. Patricia Schwager, Swi
14. Charlotte Becker, Ger
15. Anne Samplonius, Canada
16. Melissa Holt, NZ
17. Tatiana Antoshina, Rus
18. Vicki Whitelaw, Aus
19. Alexis Rhodes, Aus
20. Olga Zabelinskaya, Rus
So they have 5 form the top 10, 6 from the top 20. Longo and Samplonius are in Chrono Gatineau, in Canada (which Clara Hughes won, despite crashing! That woman is amazing! One of only 5 people to have Olympic medals in winter & summer. Check this link Monty found, for photo & great quotes from the Gatineau TT)
by Sarah Connolly on May 19, 2011 6:25 PM EDT up reply actions
and other riders who top 20-ed in the '08 Olympic ITT
and are still riding, Marianne Vos, Ned, 14th & Nicole Cooke, GBr, 15th – Vos is also the Dutch ITT Champ, though she doesn’t seem to ride the Worlds ITT
by Sarah Connolly on May 19, 2011 6:28 PM EDT up reply actions
(I hadn't looked at that before I wrote this, so I'm relieved
that my “who I think will be good” corresponds quite nicely with it! Phew!)
by Sarah Connolly on May 19, 2011 6:35 PM EDT up reply actions
I have wondered
and I doubt this is the case, but I have just wondered whether or not the whole pay-for-however-many-men-you-beat thing was deliberately and calculatedly outrageous. Then Messick had the chance to look all reasoned and pragmatic by ceding to the voices of opposition while getting loads of easy headlines and having people talking about this race who otherwise might not have been as interested.
Yeah, probably not. But by accident or design, this will get more attention than it would have done without that fiasco.
Posted earlier by the Figurehead in the Giro thread
by so good it’s worth cross-posting here!
Emma Pooley interview in the Telegraph. Lots of good stuff, but I especially like:
British cycling is enjoying a renaissance. However, women’s road cycling has slipped below the radar. How frustrating is this?
Extremely. I mean, women’s cycling in Britain has been so successful. Just look at what Nicole has done. It’s really impressive.
I don’t understand why there has been this huge push men’s cycling in the form of Team Sky but there’s no women’s team. There should at least be an option for female riders from Britain to ride fro a pro’ team for the country. I think it’s just because it’s not really cool, unfortunately. It makes me cross that they’re not interested in us.
“I’ve had people accuse me of being over-demanding and saying that I should just be grateful that I am doing it at all – and I am. I know I’m super-lucky that I get paid to ride my bike and I’ve had a great many opportunities and British Cycling has supported me in terms of kit and help with funding when I started out. That was super-helpful and that’s all great. But I just think women’s cycling could be a bit better supported. Especially in the media. I mean, when they do these Sky rides they get the male Team Sky riders and then they get some model to do the women’s one. There are plenty of female cyclists they could ask.
Maybe you were all busy that day?
I don’t get asked about things like the Sky rides. I mean, I really like doing the sportives and just cycling with people who cycle because they enjoy it. But no, they’ve never asked me if I want to do one of the Sky rides.
Just look at Lizzie [Armitstead] or Victoria Pendleton, you know they’re not exactly going to put people off cycling.
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