Sutherland, Evans claim NVGP titles

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Rory Sutherland (UnitedHealthcare-Maxxis) repeated his winning strategy from a year earlier, attacking on Chilkoot Hill to win the Stillwater Criterium, the final stage of the Nature Valley Grand Prix. Luis Amaran (Jamis-Sutter Home) followed the timely move to place second ahead of David Veilleux (Kelly Benefit Strategies).

“You go from the right position and that climb is just hard,” Sutherland said. “If you follow, you follow, and if you can’t, you can’t: it is really that simple. You have to put all your eggs in one basket on this course; one big one to try to get rid of him [Scott Zwizanski].”

Sutherland’s winning attack garnered him the three seconds he needed to win his third consecutive overall title at the Nature Valley Grand Prix. The Australian all-rounder moved ahead of the previous race leader Scott Zwizanski (Kelly Benefit Strategies) who slipped into second place while teammate David Veilleux claimed third overall.

“I’m happy to win three times and I don’t think it’s been done before,” Sutherland said. “It was fantastic and the crowds were awesome. We are very proud to do these things at this race, especially with UnitedHealthcare being from Minneapolis. It was important to us to do well for them here and create a lot of excitement within the company.

“The boys rode fantastically all week for Hilton [Clarke] and Jake [Keough],” he added. “It is such a good group of guys together and they kill themselves to get in the right position. They did that all week. Today they kept me out of trouble and on Scott’s wheel.”

The Stillwater Criterium is the race’s toughest stage, with the technical course starting at the base of Chilkoot Hill. The ascent was only a couple of hundred metres in length, but steep enough to tear the peloton apart on each lap. The professional men completed 20 laps, which included a gradual climb to the top of a blazing fast descent that wrapped back around to the base of Chilkoot Hill.

Scott Stewart (Team Type 1) kicked off the race with an attack followed by Jeremy Vennell (Bissell) and Anthony Colby (Jelly Belly-Kenda). Stewart continued on solo ahead of a new chase group that included Kiel Reijnen (Jelly Belly-Kenda) and Alessandro Bazzana (Fly V Australia).

All breakaway riders were brought back by a fast tempo set by Kelly Benefit Strategies to protect race leader Zwizanski.

Mike Northey (Rubicon-Orbea) attacked the remnants of the breakaway over the climb with 10 laps remaining and gained a 30-second advantage. He was brought back with seven to go as the pace of the peloton increased in anticipation of the closing laps.

Sutherland attacked over the climb with one lap to go, followed by Amaran and further back was Veilleux. The pair gained a several second lead ahead of Zwizanski who was slightly further back in the bunch. The move stuck and Sutherland won the stage along with the valuable seconds he needed to win the overall title.

Stevens wins final stage; Evans claims overall title

Evelyn Stevens (HTC-Columbia) dug deep to take a solo stage victory, but it was bunch sprint winner Shelley Evans (Peanut Butter & Co TWENTY12) who claimed the overall win with second place on the stage. New Zealand’s Catherine Cheatley (Colavita-Baci) claimed third on the stage.

“Evelyn went for the win and I commend her for that effort,” Evans said. “She was so strong, but I had my teammate Mara [Abbott] with me and she did everything to close the time down. I had to get some time back from Evelyn and sprinted all the way to the line for second. It was extra incentive when I knew I could win the general classification.”

Evans’ was led to victory by directeur sportif Kristin Armstrong, who has won the race on four occasions. Evans claimed the overall by 10 seconds ahead of Stevens, while Australia’s Ruth Corset (Tibco-To the Top) was a further 16 seconds behind overall.

“We are going to celebrate for sure,” Evans said. “I thought it was possible that we could win and I wanted to keep Kristin’s legacy going. It was a matter of going all out for the whole race. I had Kristin screaming at me on the side of the road telling me to give it everything I had. We came into this race to win and that is what we did.”

Evans also won the Wheaties Sprint competition while Stevens took home the Jelly Belly Sport Beans Queen of the Hills jersey.

The sheer difficulty of the Stillwater Criterium caused the field to dwindle on each climb over Chilkoot Hill. The Pro/Elite women’s field completed 13 laps and by mid-race there were only roughly 20 riders remaining in the front group.

A decisive breakaway gained an advantage over the rest of the field with five laps remaining. It included Evans, Stevens, Meredith Miller and Corset, Erinne Willock (Webcor Builders) and Cheatley.

“Cath Cheatley attacked on the climb and we all got a gap,” Evans said. “Evelyn was sitting on because her teammate Linda, who was the race leader, was behind.”

Stevens attacked the small group with three laps to go and gained 25 seconds, making her the overall race leader on the road. Evans relied on support from Abbott to reduce the gap, aided by Webcor Builders efforts to keep Willock in a general classification podium place.

“It was a scary moment,” Evans said. “Evelyn attacked and Ruth Corset and Cath Cheatley were chasing but I had Mara with me to chase those three. She set a strong tempo on the course and brought back Ruth and Cath. I asked for everything I could get out of Mara and she gave it to me.”

Stevens muscled her way through the final circuit and won the stage 14 seconds ahead of the chase group that sprinted up the climb.