August 5/08 3:12 am - David Veilleux Takes Overall Win at Tour of Elk Grove

Posted by Editoress on 08/5/08
 

Kelly Benefit Strategies/Medifast Wins Tour of Elk Grove
Report by Kelly Benefit Strategies/Medifast

David Veilleux Takes Overall Win for Team; KBS/M Fine Tunes Race Tactics Ahead of Downer's Grove Title Defense

Canadian David Veilluex continued his impressive winning streak this past weekend at the Tour of Elk Grove in Illinois, where a sprint for the line following flaweless strategy from his team mates gave the Kelly Benefit Strategies/Medifast squad the overall victory. The win in Illinois comes just weeks before the team's defense of the USPRO Criterium Championship in Downers' Grove.

"The whole team rode a great, tactically smart race," says performance manager, Ken Mills. "We knew with David going into the final criterium stage just two seconds down that with everyone pulling together we had a real shot at the overall win."

Brian Buchholz represented the team in the early breakaway to cover any Bissell attempt at the three hot spot sprint wins which would give the team six, four and two second time bonuses. Buchholz took all three sprints, eradicating the chance for a Bissell rider to overtake Veilleux in the overall GC as well as protecting any threat from Successful Living, Rock Racing and Bissell.

When the breakaway reached a 49 second lead, overall leader, Hilton Clark, team Toyota-United, was forced to ride tempo for almost the entire 110km, wearing out his team mates, and allowing the remaining members of the KBS/M squad to get a free ride for much of the race. The breakaway was reeled in with three laps to go and then at the 1km mark, Reid Mumford blew past the Toyota-United team. The team split with Alex Candelario and Veilleux on the outside of the turn and Keven Lacombe and Jake Keogh on the inside and everyone fighting it out in a bunch sprint. Keogh and then Lacombe led Veilleux to within 300 km of the line where he sprinted for second place and the overall GC win.

"We were willing to loose the race in order to win overall," says Ken Mills, performance manager. "If the breakaway had stayed out there with at least a thirty second gap, Bissell would have taken the overall race if the lead had stayed in place until the end. Our tactics put pressure on Toyota-United to ride tempo almost the entire race and kept the lead to under a minute."

"I'm tremendously proud of the way David and all our guys rode. Winning is always nice but this was a chance to test our ability to execute on a distinct race strategy and fine tune things ahead of Downers' Grove in a few weeks."