July 23/07 3:06 am - Tour de Delta: Stage 3 results, report photos & final omnium

Posted by Editoress on 07/23/07
 

Tour de Delta

Photos

By Matt Hansen

The Tour of Delta concluded Sunday with a brief glimpse of sunshine and mostly dry roads, with Leah Guloien (Giant) and Symmetrics Cycling's Andrew Pinfold taking the wins.

Women

The women raced 11 laps of the grueling White Spot road course, for a total of 85km. Each lap featured the tough climb which leads to the finishing circuit and largely favoured Symmetrics rider Leah Goldstein. Knowing this, the tough time triallist attacked early. Usually, Goldstein's strength is enough to shed all riders and she simply solos in for the win. This time, however, JAZZ Apples' Rushlee Buchanan and Giant's Guloein latched on. As the race progressed, Goldstein did manage to get rid of the stage 2 Crit winner Buchanan, but not Guloein.

As the two Leahs came to the line, Goldstein tried in vain for the win but it was Guloein that took the win.

Men

During a Super Week of rain, the only drought that had occured was that of fastman Andrew Pinfold, who couldn't snag a win. That ended yesterday, however, on the first dry day since last weekend. Pinfold broke away early in yesterday's 140km road race, with Health Net's Doug Ollerenshaw, Jittery Joe's Matt Shriver, Masi-Adobe's Zach Garland.

The foursome would increase their lead-at one point they had over three minutes-and would ultimately prove to be the only true breakaway of the day. The peloton - either tired from the week of racing, or content with the team's represented in the move-was somewhat lazy, rolling along as the break worked well.

As per always, it was the final 10 closing laps of the Tsawwassen course that saw the biggest fireworks. Symmetrics, the largest team in the race, was happy to let Pinfold stay away in the move with three of its star riders-National Champion Cam Evans, UCI America Tour leader Svein Tuft, and National Champs silver medalist Andrew Randell-not starting. When Navigators, the one team that surprisingly didn't make the move, tried to pull the break back courtesy of Kristian House, the S-Team lined up behind, waiting and watching.

Once the cat and mouse games began in the closing laps, the break began to lose time, but never close enough to tempt other riders to bridge up.

As the three riders rounded the final corner, it was all Pinfold. The Symmetrics rider bolted with several hundred metres to go, leaving him plenty of time for a celebratory finish. Ollerenshaw finished a bike length behind, with Shriver taking third. Symmetrics Cycling's strong day continued with crit winner Zach Bell kicking Kirk O'Bee (Health Net) for fourth.

“I'm super happy with the win today and it feels nice to be back on the top of the podium,” Pinfold said. “It feels like the end of a long work day and I can finally relax.”

Bell also cinched his overall win the Delta omnium, with Guloein taking the women's overall.