|
Finales Tissot-UCI
Coupe du Monde
The final world cup of the 2000 season Lausanne, Switzerland by Chrissy Redden |
Sept 1-3, 2000
The final world cup of the 2000 season was set above the picturesque city of Lausanne. Being the Olympic Capital and the home of the UCI (Union Cyclist International), this seemed to make a very good setting. The course was featured in a forest just outside the city limits. It was a mostly flat 9km loop with a couple middle ring climbs and one steep grunt. The descents were steep and fairly non-technical. But then came the rain...It rained all day Wednesday and Thursday, dried slightly on Friday and Saturday, then rained all Saturday night and most of Sunday. The course turned into a slog session. The middle ring climbs became small ring leg exploders and the grunt turned into a run/hike. The descents were just "surf and hope", unless you were Ryder Hesjedal and Roland Green who, from reports I've heard, rocketed the descents with style. In dry conditions the women's course was set at 1 start loop, 1 shortened loop and 3 full loops. With all the rain, they decided not to change the pre-assigned length, so we were in for a long, slow haul. The men's course was originally set at 1 start loop, 1 shortened loop and 5 full loops, but after the drawn out action of the women's race, the officials reasoned enough and shortened their race by one full lap. Good thing because it was still a 2:25 hr race for the eventual winner.
I, Chrissy Redden and my teammate, Ryder Hesjedal were the only ones from the Gary Fisher/SAAB squad to make the trip to the Alps. We banned together and along with Canadian National team coach, Yuri Kashirin, we managed to get ourselves safely to the start of our respective races. My race was a disaster. Right from the 2km mark I knew it would not be my day, but what I was unawares of was how bad it would be. There were a lot of factors that added up to my poor showing, but the main thing for me is that this race is not indicative of the coming mountain bike race in Sydney in 3 weeks. Rider's race was going pretty good, he had a bad start loop, but got together with fellow Canadian team member, Roland Green, and together they started moving steadily through the pack. On the last lap they had easily got into the top twenty but Ryder went careening off course and did a full-on bear hug with a well placed tree. This took him out of the action for a couple of moments causing him to lose quite a few well earned positions.
Women's Results:
1st Margarita Fullana Specialized
2nd Elisabeth Vink Specialized
3rd Heda ZuPutlitz Be One
Overall Tissot-UCI for 2000 season:
1st Barbara Blatter Scott
2nd Alison Dunlap Team GT
3rd Alison Sydor Volvo Cannondale
5th Mary Grigson Gary Fisher/SAAB
6th Chrissy Redden Gary Fisher/SAAB
Sorry no men's results