A solid team effort secured High Road the win (Image credit: CJ Farquharson)
High Road's Judith Arndt won her third stage of the Tour of Montreal on Thursday, giving her the overall tour win. The victory was Arndt's fourth in six days, including her outstanding ride in the Montreal World Cup on Saturday.
High Road director Petra Rossner was impressed with the whole team's performance. "Judith won today, but it was really the team that won. They were all amazing," she said.
After the previous day's criterium, where Suzanne de Goede (Nürnberger) took the stage win and moved into the yellow jersey by two seconds over Arndt, Team High Road had to go into the final stage on the attack. Starting in the first lap with Mara Abbott, the US team started their offense. Abbott was in a small break for 75km, forcing Equipe Nürnberger to chase hard from the start.
"It was so exciting to know that I had five of the best riders in the world sitting back in the bunch," explained Abbott, "and that I was able to support them and that when the break came back they would be right there."
Rossner continued, "In the second last lap, the gap started coming down so we started to attack from behind. Chantal, Kate, Oenone and Kim all just kept attacking to make Nürnberger chase." On the final climb, Arndt made her move taking only Sara Carrigan with her. Towards the top she dropped Carrigan and soloed to the finish gaining 26 second on the bunch.
Team-mate Kate Bates explained the excitement after the stage. "Everyone really brought their A game today," she said, "and we rode off each others confidence and motivation. It's just so cool when the race goes exactly to plan, very satisfying."
"They did a brilliant job," added Rossner. "It wasn't that they won. It was the way they did it that makes me proud."
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