Tvetcov wins Stage 3 time trial in Tyrone

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Two-time Moldovan national time trial champion Serghei Tvetcov took the win Friday in the stage 3 individual time trial at the Tour of the Gila, covering the 26km course 19 seconds faster than runner-up Tom Zirbel (Optum Pro Cycling) and 1:10 faster than Hincapie Sportswear's Joey Rosskopf.

Optum's Carter Jones out-paced his rivals in the general classification, finishing fourth on the day and so snatching the red leader's jersey from Daniel Jaramillo (Jamis-Hagens Berman). Jones now leads Gregory Brenes (Jamis-Hagens Berman) by two seconds and Rob Britton (Team SmartStop) by 10 seconds. Jaramillo dropped to sixth overall, 38 seconds behind Jones.

Canadian team pursuit specialist Laura Brown (Colavita-Fine Cooking) stormed to the win in the women's race, besting Lauren Stephens (Team Tibco) by four seconds and overall race leader Mara Abbott (UnitedHealthcare) by five seconds.

The order of the top three in the general classification remained the same, but Abbott added 1:20 to her buffer over runner-up Flavia Olviera (FCS-Zengine) and 1:09 over Abigail Mickey (Twenty16). Stephens' runner-up effort in the time trial moved her from 13th to fourth overall, 3:02 behind Abbott.

The stage 3 Dan Potts Memorial Time Trial Course in Tyrone, New Mexico, featured two climbs on the out-and-back course. Unlike the year before, when heavy winds and cold temperatures factored into the riders' efforts, Friday's weather was warm and winds were calm.

Tvetcov, Zirbel renew rivalry

Friday's result was the reverse of the Redlands Bicycle Classic time trial last month, when Zirbel took the win ahead of Tvetcov. The two riders have been building a friendly rivalry over the past couple of seasons.

“Sometimes he beats me, and sometimes I beat him; that's normal in a bike race,” Tvetcov said, adding that his previous experience with the course over the past two seasons helped him gain the podium's top step this time around.

“Honestly, before this race I looked at the GC, but what happened on the first day took me out of that,” said Tvetcov, who was still sporting the bandages from the massive pileup on stage one. “So I was like, Alright, alright, I need to look to the TT for a stage win.'”

Zirbel said he was happy with his ride, which was 25 seconds faster than last year's effort, but he was obviously disappointed he couldn't bring home the stage win.

“I was nervous about him,” Zirbel said of Tvetcov. “I thought he was my biggest competition, him and Ben Day. I knew I was in trouble. After Redlands he was only five seconds back, and that was at altitude also. So he's riding really well, and certainly time trialing really well. He beat me a couple of times last year as well, so he's my biggest rival I would say on the US circuit.”

While Zirbel faced disappointment of not winning the stage, Jones was ecstatic about having ridden into the leader's jersey.

“I'm psyched,” Jones said. “It's always better to be ahead than coming from behind. So I'm thoroughly thrilled. This is my first leader's jersey in an NRC race, or a UCI race, so I'm psyched.”

Jamis team director Sebastian Alexandre said the team had hoped to keep the leader's jersey going into Saturday's criterium and the infamously difficult Gila Monster stage on Sunday, but Jones was just the stronger rider Friday. Nevertheless, Alexandre said, the director still believes his team has a good shot of taking the final overall win.

“I have a good climber team, so I think we're going to be OK,” Alexandre said. “Stealing the podium is good, so we need to race on Sunday to see how things go. But I feel confident we have a good team. It's still kind of an open race for 10 guys, and anyone can win. But I probably have four of those 10, so it's good.”

Brown parlays track skills into TT win

Considering the quality of the riders in the field, Brown's win was definitely an upset, but no one seemed more surprised about the result than the winner herself.

“I knew I had a good ride, but to win, I'm speechless,” Brown said before the podium ceremony.

“I crossed the line, and I knew in my heart I rode it well,” she said. “I was pretty happy with my ride. I looked at my power meter and saw my time and thought, 'Whoa, that's pretty fast.' But you know, you have [former US time trial champion Alison] Powers and [current US pro time trial champion] Carmen Small coming after me, so I was kind of holding my breath. So to win, I just feel so honored. I'm just so thrilled to win this time trial.”

The track specialist said she tapped into the leg speed she had developed as an alternate to the Canadian team pursuit squad at the London Olympics and a part of the squad that recently took silver at the World Championships.

“We train for a 4km event, but it just shows that the engines we have can really stack up against the best in the 26km events,” she said. “I was really pushing on the climbs and not being afraid to dig in and maybe hurt more than you normally would that early in the TT, knowing that you have the descents to catch your breath on. So I focused on braking the ride up into climbing and descending.”

Twenty16's Amber Gaffney, who started fifth out of the 52 riders competing on Friday, set the best mark early with a time of 41:23. Her result lasted through most of the field until Brown crossed the line with her winning time of 39:25. The young Canadian was in the hot seat as Powers clocked in at 39:35 for fourth. Stephens came in next with her runner-up result of 39:29. Small's time of 40:04, was only good enough for fifth.

As the race leader, Abbott was the last rider on the course and set a blistering time of 39:30 to step onto the podium with a third-place finish. As one of the world's best pure climbers, Abbott's performance was a bit of a surprise, although not to the rider.

“If you look back, last year I was fourth by five seconds,” she said. “So that's not that far away from third. People may be surprised, maybe, but I do have a good history at this time trial and I do like this time trial. I've been feeling really good, and I'm glad I was able to pull it together at the right time.”

The defending champion now has an even bigger buffer going into Saturday's time trial and Sunday's Gila Monster challenge, and she also has one of the strongest teams in the race. But Abbott showed no signs of getting overconfident.

“You can't count your chickens before they're hatched, but I'm having a great week so far,” she said. “We all are.”

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