Wild wins Chongming Island World Cup

As the sprinter's leg of the UCI women world cup, the 130km long Tour of Chongming Island in the Shanghai province saw the victory of Dutch queen of sprint Kirsten Wild from Giant-Shimano. She outsprinted Italian rivals Elena Cecchini (Estado de Mexico-Faren) and former world champion Giorgia Bronzini (Wiggle-Honda).

Thanks to the best result she could hope for, Cecchini moved into the lead of the U23 world cup ranking, on equal points with Flèche wallonne winner Pauline Ferrand Prévot from France who was absent in China.

"It's been a while since I last won a big race like this. It makes me very happy," said Wild, who was full of confidence after winning the three-day Tour of Chongming Island stage race overall. Pressure was on her shoulders but her team managed to deliver a bunch sprint after chasing down all the attacks once past the biggest difficulty of the race: the riders had to make a U-turn over the Jiang Zemin bridge over the Yang-tze river where they reached an altitude of 73 metres above sea level. Sarah Olsson of Hitec-Products won the Queen of the Mountain prize.

As they claimed the two intermediate sprints with Rebecca Wiasak, the Australian national team showed their ambitions prior to going on the offensive in a coordinated effort with the Wiggle Honda team. Katrin Garfoot rode away with Mayuko Hagiwara whose teammate Emilia Fahlin from Wiggle Honda counter-attacked. With ten kilometers to go, Tone Lima (Hitec-Products) and Emily Roper (Australia) tried their luck. Garfoot went solo again but the bunch sprint was inevitable.

"I had a strong team so it wasn't that hard for me but it's been a very hard race to control for my teammates," Wild explained. "Just before the sprint started, one of my teammates crashed, so I followed Wiggle Honda. They forced me to sprint from 250 metres. It was a long sprint."

"We spoke with the Australians to make the race hard," Bronzini revealed. "I would have been happier if one of them finished on the podium, rather than someone whose team was passive in the race. I guess this is the game of cycling but I'm pissed off. I knew that Kirsten was the strongest in such a sprint, but my team is the only one to have honored the race by working hard against her. I'm not the type of rider who just waits."

Cecchini did, and she calculated well. "To finish second here brings me many points for the best young rider classification of the world cup," the 22-year-old Italian said. "It's an excellent result for me. To make the podium of a world cup race after finishing many times fifth, or sixth, etc. is very important. It's been a very long sprint. I made it all on the wheel of Kirsten. I knew she was the most powerful. I'm delighted to get the leader's jersey today here in China."

After five legs, Lizzie Armitstead retains the lead in the overall world cup ranking. The next world cup race is Sparkassen Giro in Germany on August 3rd.

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