March 7/98 8:41 am - Tech Update, Redlands, Euro results

Posted by Editor on 03/7/98
 

Technical Update

We seem to have fixed the problems that we have been experiencing over the past couple of days. We apologize for the delays and frustration our readers must have felt, not being able to get their daily fix of news and forums! Just so you know: the problems seems to have been our very ambitious Daily News database. When you logged into our site, the server would go to the database and dynamically search out the most recent postings and put them up at the top of the screen. The problem was, that as many as 20-30 people at a time were coming into the site simultaneously, and the poor server couldn‚t handle the load of all these simultaneous requests and crashed. So, we‚ve gone to a different (simpler) system that won‚t have these problems, while we work on a long-term fix for the dynamic database.


Redlands Report by Ed Schum

Overall, the people organizing the Redlands Classic Stage Race are doing an excellent job. There seem to be hundreds of marshals out there keeping the courses safe, races start fairly well on time and awards are presented shortly after every event. But when it comes to getting the rest of the results it seems to get later and later every day.

Unarguably the toughest stage of this year's Redlands classic was held today (Friday) under the toughest weather conditions to make it a real test for the 90 some women and over 200 men left in the competition. A short, hard downpour at the start of the men's race, high gusting winds and cool temperatures all along the route, getting increasingly colder on the final 14 km long climb and finally, snow and hail at the mountain top finish! The song that says 'It never rains in Southern California' never mentioned snow.

The lousy weather did not make the racing any less competitive or spectacular. The men's race saw a very early breakaway (km 12) of seven riders. With Thurlow Rogers (Mercury), Scott Fortner (Saturn), Eric Messenger (Nutrafig), Derek Bouchard-Hall (Shaklee), Adam Laurent (Navigators), Aaron Olson (US National Team) and Canadian Yannick Cojan (Chrysler Plymoth), seven different teams were represented in this break. This, and the fact that the lead was already 3:45 at the first feed (km 42) and increased to 4:30 by the second feed (km66) made this break dangerous for the teams not represented in it. Even though there were numerous prominent teams included on that list (US Postal, OilMe, Volvo/Cannondale, Kissena, 7up, Lords of Dirt, Trek/VW Colorado Cyclist), nobody seemed to be willing to help the 'star team' US Postal with the chase. And chase they did! With five 'Postmen' pulling at the front of the pack the advantage of the break was down to 2:33 at km 125 and nearly zero at the base of the final 14 km climb (km155).

With the Postmen having done all this chasing, one would have thought that they'd all be too worn out to be contenders for the final climb. That's where super talent Jonathan Vaughters came in. The winner of yesterday's Time Trial proved that he was also an excellent climber. On this long, steady climb teamwork was no longer a factor, and drafting of no help. There was no pretending or faking it. Only the strongest climbers could succeed. Vaughters reeled the breakaways in one at a time and only Australian mountain biker Cadel Evans (Volvo/Cannondale) was able to stay near him. When the finish at snowy Oak Glen was reached it was Vaughters at 3:50:42 with Evans 12 seconds behind and Chris Wherry (Saturn) at 1:22 in third.

Canadian Eric Wohlberg, who started the day in second place in GC, rode a very strong race. Eric came into the final climb with the leaders only to have a flat about one third up the climb. Feeling still strong he passed many riders after his wheel change but could do no better than 47th place, 6:02 behind Vaughters. Best Canadian finisher was Gord Fraser - 12th @ 3:42.

Other Canadian finishers:

24. Mark Walters @4:40
29. Scott Price @ 4:55
56. Andreas Hestler @ 6:53
66. Keith Stark @ 7:54
72. Tim Hadfield @ 8:43
78. Roland Green @ 9:31
125.Lucas Curran @12:51
145.Paul Rego @16:48
174.Yannick Cojan @20:49

G.C. after 3 stages:

1. Jonathan Vaughters US Postal
2. Cadel Evans Volvo/Cannondale @ 1:14
3. Chris Wherry Saturn @ 1:54
4. Levi Leipheimer Saturn @ 3:28
5. Tyler Hamilton US Postal @ 3:47
6. Steve Larsen Healthsouth/Mrs.T's @ 4:23
7. Bart Bowen Saturn @ 4:35
8. Trent Klasna Navigators @ 4:46
9. Scott Moninger Navigators @ 4:48
10. Clark Sheehan Colorado Cyclist @ 4:59

Top Canadians:

14. Gord Fraser Mercury @ 5:21
23. Eric Wohlberg Shaklee @ 6:32
28. Mark Walters Jeep/Brielle @ 6:43

The women did not miss much of the fun the men had in today's race, since the only additional distance the men did was 42 relatively flat kilometres through the valley at the beginning of the race.

From there on the course was the same. Nothing serious happened until the start of the long climb. From there on it was everyone for herself, and the strongest climbers showed up first at the snowbound hilltop finish. Julie Young, the only rider on the FANINI team at Redlands, was the winner in 3:26:00, beating Alison Sydor by 13 seconds.

After all that tough climbing Alison was strong enough to beat Sue Palmer (Haro), Leigh Hobson of Shaklee, Tammy Jaques (Healthsouth/Mrs.T), Mari Holden (US National), Pam Schuster (Saeco/Times) and fellow Canadian Clara Hughes(Saturn) in a seven up sprint. Linda Jackson (Saeco/Timex) came in 10th, 40 seconds down. SPICE girls Chrissy Redden and Melanie McQuade had excellent races and finished 19th @ 3:01 and 21st @ 3:14 respectively.

Other Canadians:

25. Trish Sinclair SPICE @ 4:14
31. Annie Gariepy ELITA 5:09
35. Cybil Diguistini ELITA 6:00
45. Melanie Dorion ELITA 7:06
49. Leah Goldstein SOLITON 8:11
51. Kim Langton ELITA 8:11
56. Stacey Spencer GT Canada 10:04
57. Mandy Poitras Escape Velocity 10:09
70. Sophie St. Jaques ELITA 13:59
73. Karen Timewell Escape Velocity 16:11
81. Marg Fedyna 27:08
85. Kirsten Kotval ATOMIC 35:54

G.C. after 3 stages:

1. Clara Hughes
2. Mari Holden @ 0:14
3. Pam Schuster 0:36
4. Alison Dunlap 0:48
5. Leigh Hobson 0:53
6. Alison Sydor 0:54
7. Linda Jackson 1:00
8. Julie Young 1:49
9. Sue Palmer 1:55
10. Karen Kurreck 2:09

The rest of the Canadians:

21. Melanie McQuade 5:26
22. Chrissy Redden 5:50
32. Annie Gariepy 7:35
42. Cybil Diguistini 9:02


Vuelta a Murcia, Spain

Stage 3 - Murcia to Librilla, 169.1 kms

1. ELLI, Alberto ITA CASINO 4:11:0
2. EDO, Angel ESP KELME-COSTA BLANCA
3. ZBERG, Marcus SUI POST SWISS TEAM
4. KONYSHEV, Dimitri RUS MERCATONE UNO-BIANCH
5. MOLINARI, Maurizio ITA ROS MARY-AMICA CHIPS all s.t.

GC

1. ELLI, Alberto ITA CASINO 12:39:14
2. EDO, Angel ESP KELME-COSTA BLANCA 0:04
3. MOLINARI, Maurizio ITA ROS MARY-AMICA CHIPS s.t.
4. ZBERG, Marcus SUI POST SWISS TEAM 0:06
5. GONZALEZ, Santos ESP KELME-COSTA BLANCA 0:09