Colorado Classic Women's Race: Valente wins stage 3 in Denver

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Track specialist Jennifer Valente (Twenty20 p/b Sho-Air) won stage 3 at the Colorado Classic Women's Race on Saturday in Denver. She sprinted to victory ahead of Kendall Ryan (Tibco-SVB) and Emma White (Rally) under rainy conditions.

Valente also won the three intermediate sprints and used that knowledge to help in her bid for the stage win.

"I was a couple of riders back coming out of the last corner," Valente said. "Nobody went right away. When Rally did jump, it was pretty early, and I think that going for the intermediate sprints helped me in that because I knew how long that sprint was going to be. I think today, just that little bit of patience paid off."

Katie Hall (UnitedHealthcare) maintained her lead in the overall classification heading into the finale stage 4 on Sunday.

How it unfolded

The women lined up for a short 36.1km criterium, held on a 1.25km course in Denver, for the third stage of the Colorado Classic. The race offered three intermediate sprints through the start-finish line; at 7.2km, 14.7km and 21.7km.

Katie Hall (UnitedHealthcare) started the day in the leader's jersey after winning the previous day's time trial in Vail, with 26 seconds over her teammate Leah Thomas and 1:22 over Abigail Mickey (Rally).

The women lined up under rain, which made for a wet and slippery circuit. Fearless Femme's Katie Compton used her cyclo-cross skills to control the front of the peloton in the opening laps, protecting the team's sprinter and stage 1 winner Rebecca Wiasak.

"The rain made it a little more exciting because we went into it with a different tactics when it's wet, as opposed to when it's dry," Valente said.

Valente, who started the day second in the sprint competition by just three points behind Wiasak, was the first rider to attack from the field. She had some contention from Rally's Megan Jastrab, but managed to pick up the full points at the line at the first intermediate sprint. Valente also won the next two intermediate sprints, pulling ahead in the point classification.

Hanna Muegge (Point S Auto) took an opportunity to attack in between intermediate sprints and gained small lead on the field. Her efforts were futile, however, as there were less than 10km to go and a lot sprinters eager to win.

Teams that worked to keep the field together were UnitedHealthcare, to protect race leader Hall, along with Rally for Emma White and Fearless Femme for Wiasak.

A number of other strong sprinters in the field meant that the race was bound to come down to a bunch kick. UnitedHealthcare, Rally Cycling and Tibco-SVB were the most organised coming into the final laps, but it was Twenty20's Valente who took the win.

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