September 21/97 13:14 pm - World's Story, Kirk Molday 4th!

Posted by Editor on 09/21/97
 

We now have a report from Switzerland, thanks to Hank Sydor. In the women‚s race, as expected, Paola Pezzo took off like a shot from the gun. Spaniard Margarita Fullana was in second place for most of the race until the final kilometre or so when she broke her chain. Running for the line, she was passed by Italian Nadia De Negri. Canada‚s Alison Sydor finished fourth. We have also learned that the Canadian team somehow managed to miss feeding Alison TWICE during the race - both the important first feed, and the even more critical last feed. Hank says that, if she had received her feeds, she probably would have been on the podium. However, the course did favour climbers, and was not very technical - „too much pavement and too many cow pastures‰, in Alison‚s words. Alison and Chantal Daucourt had to sprint it out for 4th and 5th places.  The men‚s race was won by the very deserving Hubert Pallhuber, a perennial top finisher on the World Cup circuit. For much of the race two Swiss riders - Thomas Frischknecht and Beat Wabel - fought it out four second and third place, before fading to 6th and 10th respectively. Henrik Djernis, the three time world champion, put on an amazing late race burst to move up some 8 to 10 places and take the silver medal. Continuing his stellar season, it was Canadian Kirk Molday in 4th place - the highest ever finish by a Canadian man. Just behind Kirk in 7th was another Canadian - Roland Green - and in 13th Andreas Hestler. Only the Italians did better than Canada, with 4 in the top 15.  The weather conditions were perfect - 24/25 degrees celcius, and sunny.   Elite Men  1 PALLHUBER Hubert ITA 02:42:26  2 DJERNIS Henrik AMERICAN EAGLE DEN 02:43:30 at 00:01:04  3 BRAMATI Luca ITA 02:44:03 00:01:37  4 MOLDAY Kirk MARIN CAN 02:44:59 00:02:33  5 TCHERKASSOV Pavel DIAMOND-BACK RUS 02:46:05 00:03:39  6 FRISCHKNECHT Thomas RITCHEY SUI 02:47:09 00:04:43  7 GREEN Roland KONA CAN 02:48:23 00:05:57  8 OSTERGAARD Jan CORRACTEC-IKO DEN 02:48:41 00:06:15  9 ARNOULD Dominique PROFLEX FRA 02:49:05 00:06:39  10 WABEL Beat PROFLEX SUI 02:49:23 00:06:57  11 BRENTJENS Bart MOUNTAIN DEW NED 02:49:29 00:07:03  12 FONTANA Alessandro ITA 02:50:40 00:08:14  13 HESTLER Andreas ROCKY MOUNTAIN CAN 02:51:09 00:08:43  14 CIONI Dario ITA 02:52:01 00:09:35  15 BRENES Andres . CRC 02:52:10 00:09:44  16 GOULD Tim GBR 02:52:16 00:09:50  17 VAN DOOREN Bas VSB-BATAVUS NED 02:52:46 00:10:20  18 ROWNEY Paul GIANT AUS 02:53:12 00:10:46  19 BAKER David GBR 02:53:51 00:11:25  20 LARSEN Tom AMERICAN EAGLE NOR 02:54:16 00:11:50   34 35 SHEPPARD Chris HARO CAN 3:00:01 00:17:35  38 122 WEDGE Peter KONA CAN 3:01:14 00:18:48  49 88 TOURVILLE Eric ORYX CAN 3:09:08 00:26:42 72 115 HURLEY Bill SCHWINN CANADA CAN 3:25:00 00:42:34