The Red Army, Marian University
WISCONSIN: La Grange - You've seen the results, you've seen the photos, now get into the head of Team Wisconsin/KS Energies (Aka: The Red Army) and see what Joeseph Maloney has to say about his win a few weeks back. Be sure to read his entire post. By this point we were well organized as we had just all moved up to the front to pull the break back. We were able to put a guy into every break and play the tactical game for 2 laps. We had a lot of times where we were able to have 2 guys in a small break. But they all came back. The dominant teams were us, Rhythm Racing, and LAPT, having Michael who had gone in the solo break at GDVC #1 with me. One of these teams was always left out in the break so they never quite got away. Until on the final lap on the back stretch a Rhythm Racing guy got away around the corner and I followed hard. We opened up a 10 second gap pretty quickly and decided that this was it. We put our heads down on that stretch and got probably 20-30 seconds. Not much but a comfortable gap on the last lap. On the final stretch the RR guy was starting to fade so I did most of the pulling. I was in kill mode for sure.
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It was an exciting victory to say the least. I was looking for a victory like this. A hard race one where the win wasn’t something I could get just for being the strongest. And by no means was I the strongest. A lot of the Rhythm Racing guys were crazy strong. But we won in the end. We won because we worked well as a team and played the right cards at the right time. That on top of a little bit of good luck with me getting into the break with a guy that I was stronger than. It all came together at once and for that I cannot thank my teammates enough.
A lone rider from Cornell was off the front for a solid part of the race, only to be caught as we started climbing the five-mile climb on the big loop. I started the climb in the front with Heather Fisher from CU Boulder, Rachel Warner from Lees-McRae, and Fort Lewis’s Sarah Sturm. About half a mile into the climb Fisher was already putting the hurt on the three of us and gaps were opening up. I climbed alone but tried to keep Sturm and Fisher in sight. I knew mentally that I was going to have to suffer to get over this climb. We don’t have mountains in Indiana, ya know! I was third over the top of the climb and rode hard to try to catch Sturm. I caught her at the bottom of the descent and rode hard to the finish with her. I finished second and sealed my omnium win.
I am happy to have been able to defend my criterium and omiumn titles.
We also defended our team omnium title. I am so proud to be a part of a great collegiate program both men and women. It’s such an honor to be part of a real team effort.
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