Amaran takes men's criterium win

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Luis Amaran (Colavita-Sutter Home) sealed his victory at the Marion Classic Two-Bridge NRC Criterium through a hard solo breakaway effort. The field wasn’t able to organise quickly enough to chase down the time gap as Amaran sailed through corners.

“It was a very technical course and very difficult to read,” said Amaron, “Team Colavita thought it was very important to be in the front.”

The pace was high from the gun and Karl Menzies (OUCH Pro Cycling) moved to the front with three laps to go and brought back nearly 10 seconds of Amaran’s advantage, eventually winning the field sprint for second place.

“I’m here by myself and couldn’t really go out and chase,” Menzies said, “I had to settle back and make sure I had enough for the sprint at the end.”

The men’s podium was completed by Eric Barlevav (Mountain Khakis). The day was cloudy and cool, but riders stayed dry except for a few sprinkles.

Six time USA criterium champion Tina Pic (Colavita-Sutter Home) outsprinted Tibco team-mates Lauren Tamayo and Brooke Miller to win the women’s race. Pic found herself battling Miller and Tamayo on the final sprint as the three distanced themselves slightly from the peloton. “They did make it rough on me,” said Pic, “I was lucky. My team did a great job of leading out for me.”

The Colavita women negotiated the 10-turn, 0.8-mile downtown course in Marion, IN beautifully, and Pic was able to ride comfortably throughout the criterium, “It was a really cool race, really technical,” she said, “Ordinarily, you expect a course with that many corners to be tight, but these were wide enough where you could sweep through them.”