bhilden@druxj.UUCP (HildenbrandBE) (07/18/84)
Monday 7/16 Vail(home of all the beautiful people)
This was a rest day for the women, the men battled it out in the
50 mile Vail Criterium. With about a third of the distance left,
USA's Thurlow Rogers and Italy's Emilio Ravasio broke away and
gained about 1:20 on the pack. Ravasio beat Rogers at the line by
about half a wheel. Jeff Pierce snuck away in the closing laps to
finish third, about 20 sec up on the field.
The big news of the day was Davis Phinney losing his cool after
failing to win his fourth consecutive Vail Criterium. Ah, too
bad. He credits the lack of American cooperation for his
demise(there are 21 Americans on 3 teams in the race), which
means we have one semi mis-guided dude if he thinks they
are all going to work for him. By the way, Thurlow Rogers
is not on Phinney's Slurpee team so I'm sure there were
a few American working against him. Anyway, something
wierd must have happened to Phinney in the pack for him to lose
his cool like that(pushing, threats, etc.) but, you must remember
that he is a marked man in criteriums as well.
Tuesday 7/17 Tour of the Moon - Grand Junction
MEN
Alexi Grewal proved again that he is the best American road rider
as he won the ~90 mile event in a 2 up sprint over Andy Hampsten
of the USA Levi/Raleigh team. They were the remains of a 9 man
group that formed on the 1700 ft climb up through the monument
on the first of the two laps. Second time up it was Grewal, Hampsten
and the Colombian Para, who was refusing to work. The two Americans
"punched his ticket" at the top of the climb and finished about
3 minutes up on the field. Davis Phinney took the sprint for third.
WOMEN
Maria Canins' good sportsmanship probably cost her a victory in
the women's event. Her breakaway companion, Connie Carpenter,
broke a spoke with 10 miles to go and Canins waited rather than
capitalize on the misfortune. Carpenter easily dusted her in
the sprint and even Canins now concedes that only an act of
God will put her in the race leader's jersey(if Davis keeps
up his tirades it might just happen). Rebecca Twigg,
who admits to being thoroughly exhausted, led the field in
at about 2 minutes to pick up her first medal of the 1983
Classic.
OVERALL GC
As predicted, the number of riders in contention is dwindling, so I
am only going to list the contenders:
1) Alexi Grewal some time Connie Carpenter some time
2) Doug Shapiro @1:29 Maria Canins @1:??
3) Andy Hampsten @1:49
4) Jeff Pierce @4:?? (for comparison)
Notes:
Connie Carpenter has publicly stated that she will be here to the
completion of the event(she's no fool, she lives here!!), while
Rebecca Twigg will exit around Thursday.
Alexi Grewal is a probable DNF and with the way the Bullet(Doug Shapiro)
is riding he may be gone. This leaves the door open for my good buddy
Andy Hampsten to be in the driver's seat-- we will just have to wait
and see.
Bruce Hildenbrand
p.s. - no news on how P. Hines is doing in the Women's race