Alena Amialiusik wins Winston-Salem Classic

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Five time national champion from Belarus Alena Amialiusik (Velocio-SRAM) took the victory Sunday at the Winston-Salem Classic ahead of Amber Neben (Visit Dallas-Noise4Good), with Lauren Komanski (Twenty16-ShoAir) attacking on the final lap to take third.

Amialiusik joined Neben in a two-rider breakaway that formed late in the race and then dropped the Visit Dallas rider in the closing kilometres to solo in for the win.

"I'm so happy, every win is good. It's successful because we worked just for the win," Amialiusik said. "We had a plan to attack and make the race hard. It was the right moment for my attack. We won Tour of California with my teammate Trixi Worrack, it was an amazing race from the whole team, and the same today."

Neben, 40, has had to fight back from several bad crashes in recent years, the worst was in the 2013 Tour of California time trial, and another at last year's Joe Martin Stage Race that scuttled her 2014 season. She was happy to be able to follow Amialiusik's move and get a podium finish.

"It's just fun being a bike racer again and being in the mix," she told Cyclingnews.

Tasked with covering the moves from Velocio-SRAM by her team director, Neben had her work cut out for her. The team began lighting up the race halfway through as the field was already much reduced by sheer attrition from the heat, humidity and a tough, twisty 8-mile lap.

First Tayler Wiles and then Lauren Rowney put in promising moves, with Rowney's move with three laps to go gaining a minute. The field splintered chasing her back, and then Amialiusik countered.

"With three laps to go, toward the top of the climb, Alena went, and I knew that was the move right there," Neben said. "I dug really deep to be able to get to it.

"It was hard, at that point, because I had used so many matches earlier, I was just in that mode where I need to be conservative. She was really strong. The second-to-last time up the climb both of my adductors seized up and I thought uh-oh, I had to try to relax and recover. It was just surviving the last lap - she was so strong. I did my best to hang on for second."

With UnitedHealthcare left to chase behind, trying to set up a sprint finish for national championship runner-up Coryn Rivera, Komanski was able to follow and take her chance on the last climb and solo in for third.

Racing in front of a large group of her hometown fans and family, Komanski was thrilled to land on the podium.

"It's pretty incredible to race here, and to finish on the podium is a nice bonus. The team worked super hard - I got to be protected in the end and take a flyer on the hill," she said. "With the weather, it's so hot and it felt like a sauna. We rode aggressively but it's hard to tell how you'll react.

"When Villumsen didn't make the bridge, UHC had the strongest team, and they had Coryn. They went to the front and the rest of us played a little poker and let them work on the front pretty hard."

The result followed a third place overall at Tour of California in a promising first half of the season for the 29-year-old.

"This is huge," Komanksi said. "It's doubly big because it's my hometown. This and Tour of California were two pretty big American results."

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