Colorado Classic: Poidevin wins women's overall in Breckenridge

Sara Poidevin (Rally Cycling) relied on her climbing prowess in Breckenridge to seize the final stage win and the overall victory Friday at the Colorado Classic Women's Race, taking the stage by two minutes over runner-up Tayler Wiles (UNitedHealthcare) and by 2:36 over third-placed Abby Mickey (Colavita-Bianchi).

"A couple weeks ago at Cascade, we came so close to the GC," Poidevin said after the stage. "We had a big competition with 2020, and it was real fight to the end. It was a great win by them, but it was so close. To come away with the win this week is really exciting for us."

The stage in Breckenridge was quite a bit different than the opener the day before in Colorado Springs, where track specialist Jannifer Valente (Sho-Air Twenty20) took the win and the race lead. 

Poidevin sailed away on the Moonstone Road climb on Friday to seal the overall victory in the two-day race, also adding the mountains classification, the sprint classification and the prize for Best Young Rider to her palmares.

"I knew that I was outnumbered, especially by UnitedHealthcare," Poidevin said of the finale. "Going into the second-to-last lap, I really wanted to make sure I wouldn’t get worked over by them because they had so many riders in the front group. My only thought was to try to get up the road with Abby Mickey and work with her. Once I started going, no one was on my wheel, so at that point I had to go. If the UHC girls were all spread out they couldn’t work together, either, so I knew that if I was working hard, then everyone else was working just as hard."

The women tackled five laps for 51.5km on the difficult course at attitude in Breckenridge, with multiple climbs of Moonstone Road providing the day's biggest challenge.

The peloton finished the first lap mostly together as Lauren Hall (UnitedHealthcare), Katie Compton (Amy D Foundation) and Mickey claimed the points on the first sprint of the day. The field started to split heading up tot he QOM on the second lap, and a group of 12 pulled away that included Poidevin, Wiles, Katie Antonneau (Cylance) Flavia Oliveira (Fearless Femme), Leah Thomas (Sho-Air Twenty20) and Allie Dragoo (Sho-Air Twenty20)

Cascade Classic winner Dragoo eventually suffered a mechanical and dropped out of lead group, left to chase for the rest of the afternoon. The gap to the leaders continued to grow on lap 3, where Hall, Scotti Lechuga (Hagens Berman-Supermint) and Mickey lost contact. The trio battled back into the group, and Mickely attacked at the end of the lap and took the max sprint points ahead of Poidevin and Thomas.

"I didn’t really attack," Mickey said. "I was just following Ruth Winder over the top and pushed it on the downhill. When I looked back I had a gap. I knew that I couldn’t accelerate with Sara, so I just tried to hold the gap as long as I could. She came over me on the QOM on lap 4 and went off the front, and I couldn’t hold her pace."

It was Poidevin's time to shine from there, despite UnitedHelthcare having superior numbers. The young Canadian attacked at the top of the KOM on lap four and quickly gained the gap she'd hold to the finish. Wiles tried in vain to chase Poidevin over the final lap as the peloton exploded, but the UnitedHealthcare rider was unable to bring back her Rally foe. Mickey held on for third, setting up the final overall podium places.

"It was hard," Wiles said after the stage. "Sara is a very worthy winner. We had the numbers. We had four people for a long time and she was on her own, and she was able to follow all of us and then counter us. I definitely came here to win, I love this race. Two years ago was one of my favourite races. We did our best, and Sara is a very worthy winner."

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