Clarke claims heavenly sprint in St. Paul

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Hilton Clarke (UnitedHealthcare p/b Maxxis) made it two from two for Australian riders in the Downtown St. Paul Criterium with a convincing victory. The UniteHealthcare pb Maxxis sprinter outpaced teammate Karl Menzies and Luca Damiani (Kenda-Geargrinder), in second and third respectively.

"It's been a bit of a dream run for me since I joined this team in the last two weekends," said Clarke. "I sprinted to the line and even threw my bike, turned around and there was no one there; Karl was about 15 metres behind me. I didn't want to leave it to any chance. I put my head down and went all the way to the line. I've done it enough by now to not screw up by looking behind me."

After winning the stage one time trial in the morning, Scott Zwizanski (Kelly Benefit Strategies) maintained his lead in the general classification during the afternoon's stage two criterium.

The pro men competed for a total of 40 laps on a new course at the Downtown St. Paul Criterium, held on a six-corner, 1.4km circuit with 300 metres to the finish line from the final turn.

"I do really well on these types of courses because they suit my characteristics," Clarke explained. "When the course is tight, flat with lots of corners it suits my riding. I can't speak for everyone but I love these kinds of courses."

Kelly Benefit Strategies riders had their work cut out for them trying to keep Zwizanski in the overall leader's jersey. The squad relied on all its riders to man the front of the field for the duration of the some 90-minute race.

The intermediate bonus sprints offered kept the speeds fast. Sprinters who placed higher up in stage one's short time trial tried to capture additional seconds to move ahead in the overall GC.

Alexey Schmidt (Team Type 1) took the first time bonus for five seconds ahead of Alejandro Borrajo (Jamis-Sutter Home p/b Colavita). Luis Amaran (Jamis-Sutter Home p/b Colavita) attacked prior to the next time bonus and picked up the full five seconds before returning to the field.

UnitedHealthcare rallied at the front under ten laps to go in an effort to secure control of the peloton as the race headed toward the finish line, passing the Kelly Benefit Strategies train. The leader's team held strong near the front to mainly protect Zwizanski's overall race lead.

The sprint ignited out the of the last corner. A squabble behind Clarke for his teammate Jake Keough's wheel caused a gap to open and Clarke crossed the line with a victory salute, a sizable gap ahead of his teammate and leadout man Karl Menzies.

"Really we were setting up Jake but a lot of the teams are nervous about my sprint and are aggressive towards Jake to get him off our train," said Clarke. "I guess Karl got second because there was an incident out of the last corner that I didn't see and that's also why I won by a lot. Jake has proven that he is one of the fastest guys in the country right now."

Hosking hangs her hopes on sprint

Chloe Hosking (HTC-Columbia) demonstrated the reason for her increasing reputation as one of the sprinters to watch in future years as the Australian outpaced American talents Theresa Cliff-Ryan (Colavita-Baci p/b Cooking Light) and Shelley Evans (Peanut Butter & Co. TWENTY12) to claim the win.

"It was all together for pretty much the whole race," said Evans. "The GC is always wide open for this race because there wasn't a lot of time gained in the time trial. Our objective was to gain as much time as we could and I won all three time bonus sprints."

The morning's stage one time trial winner Alison Starnes (Tibco-To the Top) maintained her lead in the general classification by a mere two seconds ahead of Evans. The sprinter started stage two 23 seconds behind Starnes but moved into second place by virtue of capturing 21 seconds' worth of time bonuses offered during the criterium.

"We wanted to secure and move up as far as we could in the overall," Evans continued. "We wanted that time to protect our other riders and also to allow me to move up. I got 15 seconds of intermediate sprints and then six seconds at the finish line. I'm two seconds out of the leader's jersey which is a good position to be in."

Some 100 pro and elite women lined up on the start line of a brand new criterium course offered at the Nature Valley Grand Prix, a valuable event on both the National Racing Calendar (NRC) and Women's Prestige Cycling Series.

The second stage's traditional criterium was moved from Lowertown up to the heart of the entertainment district in Downtown St. Paul. The change of location was meant to attract more spectators, out to catch a glimpse the speedy late-afternoon event.

"There were a few wide streets to move up on," Evans said. "The road conditions were not that good. It was interesting though and one of the streets had cobbles on it."

The criterium offered three valuable intermediate time bonuses plus a hefty helping of seconds to the winner of at the finish line. The Peanut Butter & Co. TWENTY12 team did a superb job of holding the field together so that its sprinter Evans could capture all three bonuses on hand.

The teams that proved to be most aggressive during the 28-lap criterium were Colavita-Baci and HTC-Columbia. Team Tibco did much of the pace setting to hold the field together in an effort to protect its race leader Alison Starnes, with help from the Peanut Butter & Co TWENTY12 team interested in collecting time bonuses to move Evans.

With ten laps to go, the lead-out trains were beginning to rally at the front of the field. Tibco, Colavita-Baci and HTC-Columbia had the most dominant lead-outs in the closing laps.

"It was a race to the last corner and I was way out of position coming into the last corner," Evans said. "I should have known after doing all those intermediate sprints where I needed to be but it was kind of too hard for me to get up there by myself. I was just chasing the sprint and knew that I wasn't going to win."