Winfield tops Van Gilder in C3 sweep

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With current UCI World #1 and two-time defending Champion System MAC season title holder Laura Van Gilder on the start line, few would have bet against her firepower. But while C3-Athletes Serving Athletes' Halloween Storm Trooper-themed skinsuits had announcers throwing around science fiction metaphors, Team Cystic Fibrosis' Kristin Gavin had a more down-to-earth metaphor of her own. "It was a yard sale out there," said Gavin, who crashed twice during the race on the deceptively technical Beacon course. "It's so fast here that you have to stay alert. If you make a mistake and take a wrong line, your bike might leave you."

Just after the remount following the first trip up the two-story "Amphitheater of Pain" run-up on the first lap, Van Gilder made just such a mistake and hit an exposed root with her pedal. The resultant crash took down much of the still compacted field and allowed Van Gilder's teammates, Dee Dee Winfield and Arley Kemmerer to escape.

Within minutes, Winfield was in full power mode and time trialing a huge gear all the way around the Beacon Course that is nearly unchanged since its inception nearly a decade ago.

Kemmer rode with Winfield briefly, then dropped off as Gavin and her Team Cystic Fibrosis teammate Nikki Thiemann worked together in vain try to reach her.

Van Gilder, near the back of the field and 45 seconds down on Winfield, started her own time trial. At each time check around the lap, Van Gilder would gain between two and four seconds. One by one, Van Gilder worked her way through the field like a domestique through a stage race caravan, until only Winfield and Kemmerer remained.

Though Kemmerer was a teammate, she wasn't going down without a fight, but was no match for the powerful Van Gilder, who was bleeding from a big gash on her shin suffered in the first lap race. Van Gilder's chase ended there as she was never able to pull back any significant time from the flying Dee Dee Winfield, who scored her first UCI win of the season.

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