Ryan wins Winston-Salem women's criterium

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Alexis Ryan (UnitedHealthcare) powered over a swift downhill sprint and held off Loren Rowney (Velocio-SRAM) for the win at the Winston-Salem Classic Criterium Saturday in North Carolina. Joanne Hogan (Tibco-SVB) was third after joining Ryan and Rowney in a three-rider breakaway that lapped the field with 18 circuits remaining.

From that point the race was an all-out effort to set up the final sprint, where Velocio-SRAM lined it up for Rowney over the final two laps. In the finale it was Ryan's teammate Coryn Rivera who provided the perfect lead out, however, with Ryan diving into the final turn on an inside line and forcing Rowney to come around the long way. The tactic gave Ryan her first national level victory since the U23 criterium title in 2013.

The win was particularly poignant for Ryan, who spent all of last year recuperating from a severely broken arm sustained in the Energiewacht Tour in the Netherlands in April 2014. After seven months off the bike, the American who normally acts as a lead out for sprinter Coryn Rivera, finally got her own chance to shine.

"It feels pretty incredible, I've worked hard for the girls all year. Today, anyone could win, and it happened to be me. They were happy for me, and I was happy my giving to the team came back full circle," she told Cyclingnews. "I'm super happy to be back racing with such a great team."

The organisers changed the course from last year, finally settling on a short, rectangular circuit that started and finished in the middle of a fast descent. With a big field lining up for the National Criterium Calendar round and plenty of nerves, UnitedHealthcare decided to start attacking from the gun to shake out some of the many strong European riders in the race and keep their riders out of danger.

"Coryn attacked first, and then once we caught her I countered and two others went with me. It just stuck," Ryan said. "It wasn't the original plan, but it worked out. It's a really hard, fast course, and they probably weren't expecting us to stick it, it's not a normal thing to do."

The pressure from Unitedhealthcare on the first lap caught a number of teams napping, with Optum missing out completely. They weren't alone, as top European riders like Kirsten Wild (Hitec Products), Dutch champion Iris Slappendel (Bigla) and most of the Alé Cipollini team were caught in the whiplash-inducing changes of pace in the pack and missed the front split.

Ryan, Rowney and Hogan settled in and benefiting from a steady effort, worked together to slowly stretch their gap over the first hour and lap the field with about 20 minutes to go. Hogan knew she was outgunned in a sprint finish, knowing Rowney well from racing in Australia.

"I was in with two sprinters, and I'm not known to be a quick sprinter. I thought if the three of us stayed away I could try to be a bit cunning - Lauren is one of my good friends and I've been head to head with her in Australia and I know how good she is in a sprint. Alexis is a known sprinter, when the bunch caught us I thought it'd be a bit harder, people got a bit pushy, but my teammate Jo really pushed for me and got me into position in the finish."

As the laps ticked down, the three riders had help getting into position from their teams. Rowney's Velocio-SRAM team began its leadout a bit earlier than they had planned with 5 laps to go, but Rowney said she hesitated at one critical moment before the last turn and it was game over.

"The team did a brilliant job, but Coryn also did a good job taking Alexis through and I just hesitated a for a moment at the top [of the course] and she got the jump on me. I was cooked. I held on and tried to come at her but couldn't get over the top. I'm happy to be back - it's nice to get a podium."

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