Inge van der Heijden solos to OZ Cross victory in Fayetteville

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Inge van der Heijden (777) rode solo across the line to win the C1 elite women’s contest at OZ Cross in Fayetteville, Arkansas on Friday. Trailing 25 seconds later in second place was Hélène Clauzel (AS Bike Racing), and 11 seconds later Manon Bakker (Crelan-Fristads) in third.

Fourth place was decided in a sprint between a pair of US riders, Clara Honsinger (EF Education-TIBCO-SVB) and Austin Killips (Nice Bikes), with Honsinger taking the spot.

“Yeah, I had a really good start. I was on my own enough to go full gas in the last lap and I'm really happy to take the win today,” Heijden said at the finish. “I was pushing a lot on the climb. It was really hard. I’m really looking forward to Sunday to rock again.”

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Friday’s C1 races opened a weekend of events at Centennial Park at Millsap Mountain, a permanent Olympic-style cross country mountain bike and cyclo-cross course that was used for the ‘cross World Championships last season. Dry and dusty conditions across the eight-lap contest began Clauzel taking the holeshot, which was a repeat of her fast start the week before at Trek CX Cup.  

By the end of the first lap, Clara Honsinger (EF Education-TIBCO-SVB), Van Der Heijden, Clauzel, Bakker and Ceylin Del Carmen Alvarado (Alpecin-Deceuninck) had created a substantial gap on the rest of the field.

Van der Heijden was able to strike out solo midway through the race, before her gap was closed down for a time by Honsinger, Alvarado and Clauzel. Honsinger was at the front headed to the closing lap, but slid out on the Stonehenge feature.

“It was just a small little mistake, but unfortunately I slid on my drive side so it shifted my derailleur into my spokes. Luckily, I was able to bend the hanger back and actually finish the race without needing the pit. But it took me a moment to gather my bike and get back  up,” Honsinger said about falling out of contention for the podium. 

“I'm really happy that I got out there today and put out a good effort. It was really fun to hear people cheering my name, and as well as Europeans names, there’s true cycling fans out there.”

Former World Champion Alvarado was absent from the final three laps, as she pulled into the pits and appeared to have completed enough of the race as a tune-up for Sunday’s World Cup.

The elite women line up again on the 12.89km circuit for the second World Cup race of the  season on Sunday. Van der Heijden was sixth at World Cup Waterloo, that race won by Fem van Empel (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal) in a sprint against Alvarado.

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