Annie Foreman-Mackey wins Canadian road title

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Canadian track rider Annie Foreman-Mackey (The Cyclery-Opus) pulled off an impressive upset in the women's road race at the Canadian Road Nationals in Ottawa on Saturday, winning solo by over a minute ahead of a field filled with road pros. Joelle Numainville (Cervelo Bigla) outsprinted Leah Kirchmann (Liv-Plantur) for second.

Foreman-Mackey, a member of Canada's world-class team pursuit squad, and a bronze medalist at the world championships in the Individual Pursuit, joined a breakaway on the fourth lap of 11, on a mostly flat 10 kilometre circuit. The break never gained more than 2:20 on the peloton, but persisted at the front of the field, as the top European and U.S.-based pros could not put together a consistent chase.

Jamie Gilgen (Visit Dallas DNA) started the break on the first lap, and was joined on the fourth lap by Gillian Ellsay (Trek Red Truck), Alizee Brien (Tibco-SVB) and Foreman-Mackey.

By the halfway mark the gap was approaching a minute and a half, with the two biggest domestic teams - The Cyclery-Opus and Trek Red Truck - having no interest in chasing. Karol-Ann Canuel (Boels-Dolman) and Kirchmann would periodically go to the front, and a brief surge would knock ten seconds off the lead, but as soon as they stopped the chase, the gap would start to grow again.

With less than five laps to go, Foreman-Mackey and Brien attacked, and only Gilgen was able to come across. As the race went under 40 kilometres to go, Gilgen was the next to get dropped from the leaders, but the gap had grown to over two minutes. Foreman-Mackey was doing much of the work, with Brien struggling to hold on and, with a lap and a half to go, the Tibco rider finally cracked, leaving Foreman-Mackey alone at the front.

The chase seemed to get briefly organized, with the split dipping below 90 seconds, but Foreman-Mackey looked strong, and kept ticking over the pedals. The reduced peloton finally gave up as the race entered the last lap, and started preparing for a sprint for second, allowing Foreman-Mackey to cruise to victory, before collapsing at the side of the course, after spending nearly 70 kilometres at the front.

Numainville, the defending champion, was first out of the final corner with just under 300 metres to go, holding off Kirchmann and Tara Whitten (The Cyclery-Opus) to take second.

Foreman-Mackey attributed her win to strong team support. "I didn't think the break was going to stick," she admitted, "I thought it was a bit too early. But I knew I had a lot of team mates back in the pack, so I was able to lay it out on the line, knowing that if it got caught, I had a whole bunch of team mates ready to go. So I was able to commit fully to the break. I couldn't be happier that it stayed away."

Numainville said "Annie had an amazing ride. We knew that she is an amazing young rider on the track. The Nationals is so tactical, and really hard to manage, and a lot of us are here on our own without teams.. When she [Foreman-Mackey] got up there, I knew she was a dangerous one. At the end of the day I pulled off a pretty good sprint, so I'm happy with my ride."

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