June 7/97 22:55 pm - Canada Cup #2, Letter From Italy, Giro

Posted by Editor on 06/7/97
 

Canada Cup #2 - L‚Anse St-Jean, Quebec  Today was the cross-country race for the second event in the Canada Cup mountain bike series, held in l‚Anse St-Jean, Quebec (approximately 2 hours east of Quebec City). Not too many details yet (other than who won), but the races were held under perfect weather conditions, and attracted over 400 participants. Bill Hurley (Schwinn) won his second consecutive Canada Cup, with ex-roadie and fellow cyclo-crosser (and Maritimer!) Peter Wedge (Kona) second. Seamus McGrath (Kona) rounded out the top three. Quebec rider Melanie Dorion (Scott) took the women‚s race, with Melanie McQuaid (Rocky Mountain) and Trish Sinclair (Kona) repeating their second and third place finishes from last week. Ryder Hesjedal (Kona), the first year Junior phenomenon from B.C. took the Junior race a clear 5 minutes ahead of second place Matt Doyle (OGC). Unfortunately, we did not receive the results in electronic form, so we can not report complete results from all categories (as we did last week). However, we have the results, so if you are looking for a particular result, e-mail us the name of the rider and the category and we will let you know how they did! Stay tuned for the downhill tomorrow.  Results  Men Minime  1. Marc-Andre Bedard  Women Minime  1. Anne-Marie Jobin (Durand Sports)  Men Pee-wee  1. Alexandre Pichette  Women Pee-wee  1. Marie-Laurence Lupien  Women Cadet  1. Stephanie Perrault (Bromont AVP)  Men Cadet Expert  1. Stephan Sanschagrin (Beauport)  Women Junior  1. Caroline Premont (Mont Velo) 1:02:33.83 2. Marisol Bernier (Ecole Pilotage) at 2:38.39 3. Valerie Houle (Le Yeti) 3:48.77  Men Junior Sport  1. Jean-Francois Journault (c.c. GVS)  Men Junior Expert  1. Ryder Hesjedal (Kona) 2:03:01.96 2. Matt Doyle (OGC) at 5:00.14 3. Jean-Francois Laroche 8:55.48  Men Masters Sport  1. Richard Tetreault (c.c. La Boutique du Velo)  Men Masters Expert  1. Rene Marcotte  Women Veteran Expert  1. France Arsenault (Tandem)  Men Veteran Sport  1. Pierre Mercier (c.c. RCI-Verlige)  Men Veteran Expert  1. Gille Morneau (Rocky Mountain) 1:40:16.71 2. Ian Basta at 1:36.87 3. Ted Ingram (Rocky Mountain) 1:54.15  Women Senior Sport  1. Tara Laycock 1:04:01.26 2. Kathleen Villeneuve (Kona) at 0:25.43 3. Sandra Duchesne 2:54.65  Men Senior Sport  1. Christian Ouellet 1:20:37.01 2. Mathieu Longpre at 0:19.41 3. Francois Blouin (c.c. RDI-Verlige) 0:45.93  Women Senior Expert  1. Charlotte Visser (Newcourt/Devinci) 1:36:26.71 2. Claudia Carbonneau (c.c. Montavelo) at 2:08.94 3. Nadine Murtada 7:00.09  Men Senior Expert (no times or affiliations available)  1. Ian Carbonneau 2. Jonathan Voyer 3. Louis-Francois Guimond  Women Elite  1. Melanie Dorion (Scott) 1:47.29.96 2. mMelanie McQuaid (Rocky Mountain) at 4:19.88 3. Trish Sinclair (Kona) 9:31.56 4. Marie-Helene Premont (c.c. Mont Velo) 10:37.30 5. Nadine Petit (Norco) 12:42.64  Men Elite  1. Bill Hurley (Schwinn) 2:19:31.92 2. Peter Wedge (Kona) at 0:27.16 3. Seamus McGrath (Kona) 1:58.43 4. Sebastien Paradis (Team Dekerf) 4:24.54 5. Jason Crookham (Ontario Team) 5:28.5:28.44   Letter From Italy  Ciao!  Well this was for a change a rather interesting weekend...   As usual I had the chance to race on Sunday. This time round it was in a town called Casaglia (Perugia), in which contained many tests of climbing...   The race itself was called: XX Trofeo Massimo Glorio - Gran Premio della Montagna Mario Montanari. It wasn't a huge race, but there still was quite a lot of juniors at the line.   The race started with a neutral downhill, which was cool because so many riders exploded their tires from the heat created on the rims (braking). That was entertaining, but I did end up taking air out of my tires before the official start because my rims were BURNING!   The minute we had the official start, it started to DOWNPOUR! It rained for the whole race, and ended up flooding some of the roads (kinda remined me of Japan).   Anyways, today for a change I was feeling quite good. I knew there was a GPM (Gran Premio della Montagna), up for grabs after about 45km. The climb itself was really steep! So steep to that matter that when sitting I was getting wheel spin, and had to try and be very smooth while pedaling, or I'd slip. So the (now reduced) group of riders have reached the climb. I just stayed with the first three riders, and with 300m to go to the GPM I attacked and got away with about 10 seconds by the top.   This gave me great confidence for the race, when I let the main riders catch up to me (since there still was 65km to go). My one problem was that I was WAY to anxious, and chased almost everything, but the one time I decided to calm down... I lost the future break. Rather I had my one team mate get in it, and he ended up staying in it still about 15km to go when I passed him with another 3 riders.   The break had at one point over 2 minutes. One rider and myself set tempo to bring it back for about 15km and we had it to 30 seconds. But there was way to much team tactics back in our group from the two main teams (my other main mistake), to actually catch up.   With 30km to go, my stomach was really hurting me, but it was only a minor setback (but it sure didn't help). Since I was feeling quite wasted after working my butt off (mistake again).   It all ended up that the break stayed away with 7 riders, and I finished ahead of the main group in 8th place up the finishing climb (same as the GPM).   I knew that after the GPM that I could/should have won today's race. There was no doubt about it that I was the strongest rider of the day, because it was extremely easy to leave the pack up the climbs (when teams didn't matter). But I missed out on the technical part of the race, I was in too many dumb attacks, rather than in the right one. But as Aldo says, "When you win, you don't learn, but when you loss you learn magnitudes!"   Later after the race completed, I found out that the race itself was centered around the GPM. Thus winning the GPM was more prestigious then the actual win itself. Put it this way I won more than the top 3 combined, from winning the GPM. Here is what I won, just for an example:   - 1 Trophy - 1 Silver and Gold Plate - A Box of little cakes - 1 BIG Sausage - 1 Diadora T-Shirt - 1 Bottle of Wine  Not to mention a couple of lira was given in the process..   I don't want to sound like a snob or anything, but I just found it really interesting to see how much stuff I got for wining the GPM and coming 8th overall. I've never won so much stuff in such a small race EVER. As they say "Italian do it better". :) haha..   Besides that, I'm feeling better and better and hope that the continued progression will be made. I sure hope that my knee will go away (even tough it's minor right now).   Hmm.. There is a new member of the house hold since Sunday night (found him when I got back). He is from the U.S of A and is named Rene Saenz, he might sound familiar because he took silver at the Junior World Championships Point Race in 1995. Now he's 20 years old, and is gonna try his luck in Italy for a while. He seems like a nice guy, and so far everyone gets along good with him...   Well that's all for now...  David Gluzman - Dah Boiiieee   Gior d‚Italia, Italy  Stage 21, Male-Edolo, 238 km  1. Pavel Tonkov (Rus) Mapei 7:13:36 2. Ivan Gotti (Ita) Saeco at 0:01 3. Wladimir Belli (Ita) Brescialat s.t. 4. Jose Rubiera (Spa) Kelme 1:33 5. Andrea Noe (Ita) Asics 6. Nicola Miceli (Ita) Aki 7. Giuseppe Guerini (Ita) Polti 8. Giuseppe di Grande (Ita) Mapei all s.t. 9. Daniele de Paoli (Ita) Ros Mary 2:00 10. Sergei Gontchar (Ukr) Aki s.t.  GC  1. Ivan Gotti (Ita) Saeco 98:29:17 2. Pavel Tonkov (Rus) at 1:27 3. Giuseppe Guerini (Ita) 7:40 4. Nicola Miceli (Ita) 12:20 5. Serguie Gontchar (Ukr) 12:44 6. Wladimir Belli (Ita) 12:48 7. Giuseppe Di Grande (Ita) 12:54 8. Marcos Serrano (Spa) 16:07 9. Stefano Garzelli (Ita) 18:08 10. Jose Luis Rubiera (Spa) 18:58