La Primavera Rosa Report

March 18
A large field of 138 riders lined up for the second round of the women's World Cup, La Primavera Rosa in Varazze, Italy. Most of the European teams were there, and for many it was their first serious race of the year.
There was bad luck for Lucie Ruscakova (Cze) and Bridget Evans (Aus, Master Team Carpe Diem) who crashed after only two kilometres, forcing them to retire. The first hour of the race is quite fast, at 39.4 km/h, with the Dutch doing the driving, with no-one allowed to escape.
After 96 kilometers, the Cipressa climb sees Finland's Pia Sunstedt lead Daniela Veronesi (Smr, Alfa Lum) and Lithuanian Edita Pucinskaite (Acca Due O - Lorena Camicie) over the top. However they can't maintain their advantage for long and were reeled in on the descent.
The bunch remained intact until the start of the Poggio, which saw attacks by Mirjam Melchers (Ned) and Pia Sunstedt again. They manage a 10 second gap by the top, but are caught with 2 kilometers to go.
1998 World Champion, Lithuanian Diana Ziliute (Acca Due o Lorena Camicie) was too strong in the sprint ahead of Ina-Yoko Teutenberg (Ger) and Giovana Troldi (Ita, Edilsavino), and won the race at an average of 37.97 km/h. She now holds an equal lead with Anna Wilson in the World Cup standings after two rounds.
Marion Clignet's race
The weather was aweseome - got to initiate my shorts and short sleeves for the first time this season. Kept the arm warmers on until the hills just in case. Got off to a flying start and were over the first sixty km before we knew it. For us tactically the race was easy. We knew the Gas team wanted to launch Pia Sunsted and we also knew that Alessandra Capelotto would rather win herself, so let them tempo the climbs and blow themselves.....worked like a charm, sort of.
On the third to last climb, Pregnolato set a wicked pace acclerating all the way. The field of 169 slimmed down a bit. On the first 3km of the Cipressa, the second to last and longest of climbs, the field slimmed down even more. With 2km to go on the climb, Capelotto attacked off the front and a lot of us attacked off the back. Pregnolato blew herself out and was off before me. I turned aound to assess the damage and saw Ziliute fighting for air. I was struggling to stay on as we only had one rider in the front bunch (Zabirova) and couldn't quite make it. At the bottom the moto held up a chalkboard to tell me I was 45 seconds down. I started to worry a bit, turned to see a French and Valeria Capelotto on my wheel. I put the hammer down and both flew off. I looked up to see the following cars and was relieved to see that the peleton was cruising.
When I caught back on, I wondered how far up the road the break was so I asked a Dutchie who turned to me and smiled-it's just us! Oh what a relief. I recovered quickly and contemplated attacking up the Poggio but Diana wasn't yet with us so I waited. At the foot of the Poggio, Gas rider Pia Sunstedt launched with a Dutchie on her wheel. They got a 14 second gap. Diana was back on and Tatiana was with us as well - they chased down the attack as I tried to get out of the group to launch a counter. Boxed in...damn...all was together again for the descent.
Don't believe I've ever descended that fast - 88kmh through the curves and all. With one km to go I told Diana I'd launch myself solo, before the two turns...Capelotto beat me to it so I told Diana to take my wheel. Two other riders were with Capelotto with 800 meters to go. My hope was that when I caught Capelotto she'd be going fast enough for me to get a bit of a lead out and sprint for myself as well. No go - she was out of gas when I caught her with 350 meters to go. I hammered on and at 200 meters to go Diana came around to win. I threw up my arms (losing 5 places in the process) and cried, yes I cried. We have the jersey until Fleche Wallone which I asume will be war.