Vicki Whitelaw

Hi.

This is going to have to be short (and the news is quite sweet) as I’m delivering a course today and don’t have much time.

Vicki had a better day today finishing 9^th on the stage, moving up to 10^th on the General Classification.  She had the aim of a top 10 finish going into the tour so it was good to achieve it.

Vision1 had a great tour with Nicole winning 2 stages and wearing the leader’s jersey for a day, the team finishing second on the Team Classification with three in the top 10 (Nicole 4^th, Christel 7^th and Vicki’s 10^th).

Sounds like the trip to Limoux was fun… their van broke down and when I received a text from Vicki she didn’t know when she was going to get ‘home’.

Check back later for more about the racing.
Dave

Good morning.

Last night was the double header with a 2.2km hill climb and a 79km road race.  It turned out to be a very mixed day for Vicki.

To use her own words, Vicki had an “absolute shocker” on the hill climb.  She never makes excuses so I’ll make them for her .  Her legs felt like jelly, she had a headache and felt pretty out of sorts.  I’m hoping she isn’t coming down with something!  Anyway, she finished 40^th, 46 seconds off the pace and dropped to 18^th on GC.  Oh well, can win them all.  One or two would be nice though! 

Things picked up in the afternoon though with Nicole getting her second stage win of the tour.  Vicki once again worked hard to get Nicole in position for the sprint.  I’ll let her tell it in her own words…

“I tried an attack at 10km to go which had one Columbia-Highroad rider, Emilia Fahlin, following.  Carla Ryan actually led the chase back to Emilia and I and then another attack including Christel tried to get away but was only short lived.”

“Anyway, Columbia weren’t going to have any more attacks in this dangerous last section so that they sat Linda Villumsen on the front to keep the pace high for the last 8km.  Nicole asked to be brought further up the line and so I brought her up and we sat beautifully single file in 5^th and 6^th place.”

“As we came to 5km to go another Columbia-Highroad rider, Kim Anderson, took over.  It was great as I didn’t have to sit on the front but got a great slipstream even though the front bunch was really dragged out.  Was able to deliver Nicole to 2^nd wheel for the horrible steep ending.  I dropped off but luckily didn’t completely blow.”

Vicki finished 11^th, 18 seconds behind Nicole who is starting to refer to her as “my lead-out girl extraordinaire”.  I’m not 100% sure where this puts her on GC – probably still around 18^th but I’ve been known tobe wrong before.

Tonight is the final stage, a 79km loop out of Elgoibar with two Category 3 climbs.  Vicki will follow this with a 6 hour drive back to Limoux.  Now doesn’t that sound like fun???

God bless,
Dave

Last night’s Stage 2 was an 84 kilometre loop starting and finishing in Amurrio. It was a rolling stage with one Category 2 climb that came about half way through. Vicki’s major concern during the race was the narrow roads. At one point the bunch hit an uncategorised climb with the road so narrow Vicki described it as little more than a goat track. Of course a crash occurred and Vicki was caught behind it, having to chase back on. From then on Vicki made sure she was right at the front to avoid problems.

It was another good day for the team. Nicole took her first win of the season, taking the sprint from the front bunch of about 40 after a technical 1 kilometre sprint filled with round-abouts (traffic circles) with an uphill surge to the line. Thanks to the win, Nicole now holds the lead on GC going into Stage 3. Christel, Debby and Vicki also finished in the front bunch so Vision1 should have defended their lead in the team competition.

I’m not sure of Vicki’s result as there are no results up yet. The races are run late in the day (starting after 4pm) so by the time the results are known they don’t always make the news services. The Bira is one of the few stage races that doesn’t award time bonuses for stage wins or intermediate sprints so Vicki’s GC position will pretty much be the same as the position she got on the stage. More importantly she will be on the same time as Nicole.

Tonight there is a double header with Stage 3 run as two half stages.

Stage 3a is a 2.2km uphill time trial from Iurreta to Goiuria. There will be a major reshuffle of the General Classification but the time gaps won’t be massive. 2.2km is a bit short for Vicki’s time trial expertise to count but she is hoping to limit her losses to the pure climbers.

Stage 3b is a 79 kilometre loop out of Elgoibar with two Category 3 climbs, one of which is close enough to the finish to potentially create some time gaps. If this was golf we would be calling the third day ‘moving day’. Hopefully Vicki moves in the right direction!

Until tomorrow,
Dave

Well – shows how wrong you can be…  Vicki finished 22nd on the stage and has ended up 11th on GC.  Not sure how they worked this out – guess they are using some function of places in both stages.  Oh well, tonight will shake things up anyway.

Greetings.

Well, Vicki is racing another tour so I’m back in my reporting role again.  This time the race is in Spain – it must be a tough life tripping around Europe.  If I’m sounding jealous that’s because I am.  Right now it is -4 degrees and foggy here in Canberra.  NOT conducive to bike riding!!!

Anyway, enough of my whinging.  Emakumeen Bira is a 4 day, 5 stage (counting the two ‘half’ stages) 2.1 classified tour.  For the readers who aren’t steeped in all things cycling, 2.1 is the highest classification awarded to a women’s tour.  The classification depends more on the organisation than the level of competition but usually the higher it is, the harder the race.  Usually.

The first stage was raced last night.  It was 76km long with two Cat. 3 climbs.  Vision1 had a good day on the bike with three riders finishing the the very select front bunch.  Christel and Vicki were aggressive and worked hard to set Nicole up for the sprint finish… where she was just piped at the post by Judith Arndt and finished second.  Vicki rolled across the line in 10th.

The second group finished 54 seconds down so chances are the eventual winner of the tour will come from the front bunch.  Vision1 is in a strong position with 3 riders up there.

Tomorrow’s 84km Stage 2 starts and finishes in Amurrio and has a second category climb about half way through.  Here’s hoping it’ll be another good one for the team!

God bless,
Dave