April 25/99 12:21 pm - Evans Takes Spanish World Cup

Posted by Editor on 04/25/99
 

Evans Takes Spanish World Cup

Chris and Chrissy Redden (Ritchey-Yahoo!) tell us that in today's men's race 'S' was for suffering, not Spain. Rain began to fall in the last two laps of the gruelling 6 lap (plus a starting loop) event, adding to the difficulty of this very technical circuit (see yesterday's report on the women's race for a course description).

Cadel Evans (Volvo-Cannondale) was the strongman today, finishing some two minutes in front of a tightly grouped chasing group that included Miguel Martinez, Bas Van Doren, Ludovic Dubau and Dario Cioni. Top Canadian was Chris Sheppard (Catera) in 26th place.

Ludovic Dubau started things off with an attack just after the start loop that saw him gain a maximum of 30 seconds on chasers Evans, Martinez and Canadian Andreas Hestler (Polo Sport). On the second lap Thomas Frischknecht (Ritchey-Yahoo!) joined the front chasers (and Hestler began to drop back, eventually dropping out of the race). Evans made his race winning move in the third lap, moving past Dubau to take the lead. The chasers began to split apart, with Frischknecht moving into third, followed by Martinez. Dario Cioni was starting to move up also, sitting in 6th at this point.

The fourth lap saw some consolidation of positions, with Evans 20 seconds in front of Dubau and Frischknecht (who were together), followed by the trio of Bas Van Doren, Martinez and Cioni. When the cold rain began to fall in the next lap, Evans increased his lead to over 2 minutes. Frischknecht crashed during this lap, damaging his rear wheel severely enough that he was forced to finish the race without a working rear brake (he eventually finished up in the low 'teens). Van Doren had moved into sole possession of second, just in front of Cioni, Martinez and Dubau.

The final lap saw very little change, with Evans cruising in for the victory, followed by (in order) Van Doren, Martinez, Dubau, Cioni, Wolfram Kurschat and Michael Rasmussen. As mentioned, Chris Sheppard was the top Canadian finisher in 26th place, followed by Roland Green (GT) in 30th and Seamus McGrath (Haro) in the low 40s. The word is that Seamus suffered a flat during the race.

Notes:

* Chris says that the attrition was very high during the race.
* Although Melanie Dorion does not appear in the results we received, Chrissy says that she does appear on their results sheet, in 25th place...