Compton completes Ohio sweep

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Katie Compton (Planet Bike) captured her third consecutive ’cross win in one weekend at the Harbin Park International, round three of the Cincinnati Cyclocros Festival held in Ohio. It’s not the first time the US Cyclo-cross Champion has proven unbeatable at the event, sweeping the podium for the fourth consecutive season.

“This was a great weekend and I'm really excited to win a third day in a row and four years in a row, it's pretty cool,” said Compton, who won her 45th UCI cyclo-cross race. “I think today was just a faster course, with some fast, fun descents where you could really carry your speed. I felt better today than the last couple days, so that helped too.”

Laura van Gilder (C3-Athletes Serving Athletes) captured another second place after she outpaced youngster Kaitlin Antonneau (Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com) to the finish.

“It’s really hot and these are really hard courses,” said van Gilder. “Some of the girls like Natasha Elliott only got here today and are fresh, but the rest of us have been racing hard for two days. We were wondering if we were going to get schooled.”

A quality elite women’s field took their starting positions eager to contest the UCI C1 event that offered equal prize money to the men for the first five places and $2,351 USD for the win. “I don’t have much drama available when there’s two-thousand dollars on the line,” Compton said.

Compton wasted no time in opening a sizable lead at the end of the first lap. She continued to race full-throttle in an effort to gain additional fitness before heading overseas to start the UCI World-Cup calendar in Aigle, Switzerland.

“We're heading to Switzerland on Thursday for the weekend and then back home on Monday,” Compton said. “This was a great weekend of training, fun courses and hard racing and some great prize money. I feel faster already so I'm curious to see how next weekend goes. No matter the result, I'm going to have a good gauge of where I am and what I need to do to go faster.”

A chase group formed behind Compton that included Antonneau, van Gilder, Sue Butler (Hudz-Subaru), Maureen Bruno Roy (Bob’s Red Mill), and Ashley James (Kenda).

“I washed out my front wheel,” said Van Gilder. “I wasn’t sure if they knew they had gapped me. When I closed the gap, I went to the front because I wanted to be in front through the sand so they wouldn’t gap me again and I used that last lap as a recovery lap.”

As Compton rode in for her third consecutive win of the weekend, the race for second heated up behind, as Van Gilder and Antonneau orbited the final lap in pursuit of the next podium place. A savvy Van Gilder attacked Antonneau on the circuit’s steep finishing hill. She gained the small gap she needed to ride in for second place several seconds ahead of Antonneau.

James fought her way into a respectable fourth place ahead of Butler, who dropped her chain on the last lap but managed to hang on for fifth place.