The World Cup circuit hosts the most prestigious series of one-day races of women’s elite racing. Montreal is the location of the sole North American race in the world cup series and our team’s best opportunity to display our strengths in a world class field.

The course itself is considered among the most difficult. Riders ascend the 2km pitch of Mt. Royal twelve times, a climb which begins after a fast descent and sharp turn and pitches up quite steeply at first. The road levels out a bit before the grade increases again with 1km to the top, and levels out to a false flat to the finish. The road descends into a downtown area of Montreal with wide open roads, a few power climbs and fast descents.

The field consisted of a mish mash of the most elite riders of the European peloton such as World Cup leader Susanne Lungskog of Buitenport-Flexpoint and UCI number one Oenone Wood of Nurnberger and a slew of inexperienced local riders to add some excitement in the race's first descents and corners. Other riders of note were four-time winner Genvieve Jeanson, riding for Rona-ACDA, and world champion Judith Ardnt, also from Nurnberger.

Because of the race's difficulty, our game plan was to allow the hill to do the work on the riders and we would play the opportunists if other teams were aggressive. Once the final selection had been made, we hoped to have as many teammates present in the group as possible with either Christine or Erinne making an early move on the last climb with the second rider prepared to counter with the sprint.

The race began at the top of the hill, and to our surprise and contradictory to all weather reports, the sun beat down on the riders. Erinne’s celebrity status in Canada allowed her to find shade under an umbrella with fellow Canadian star Lynne Bessette, but had to face heckling through the race radio from her sun-burned teammates.

After much fan fare and a lot of loud French declarations, the race was off to a fast start downhill. As usual, the riders were jittery, but everyone managed to stay upright. The pace was steady but no immediate attacks ensued. Betina and Stefanie made it fairly quickly to the front to patrol any early moves which
might try to slip away. The first climb was almost a leisurely pace, as most riders were likely contemplating the eleven laps to follow. Surprisingly this trend continued for the next several laps; no team seemed willing to sacrifice any of their riders.

An Austrian rider attacked the climb on lap three and Felicia was quickly on it, but it came back together by the top of the hill. A Buitenport-Flexpoint rider set a faster pace up the climb to increase the speed and drop some of the weaker riders. Katheryn and Felicia covered a couple of other moves and were very present up the hill as the pace increased as the laps went by.

Sue Palmer-Komar of Colavita set a fast pace one lap and Genevieve came to front to put the pressure on several times up the hill. On one of the last laps, Amber Neben of Flexpoint put in a strong attack on the hill which shattered the remains of the field, and Nurnberger countered on the descent. Buitenport pulled it back together but attacks from Nobili and SATS followed. Nothing stayed away and the second to last climb began with only a select group who climbed at a very fast pace set by Amber and Genevieve.

Over the top of the climb with one lap to go Lynne Gagiolli, riding for Biovail, attacked on the descent, a move which worked for American Dede Demet in 2002. After an initial delay, Amber pulled her back and continued to lead the group. Lynne daringly attacked again on the descent right before the climb, but again Amber pulled her back before the 1km to go mark. The fifteen or so remaining riders, which included both Christine and Erinne, sat back and watched each other waiting for the next move to occur.

Erinne is becoming a fearless rider and with 300 meters to go she jumped for the finish. Her acceleration was strong, but Genevieve was right at the front and got on her wheel with Oenone right behind. At 200 meters Genevieve jumped, the only rider in her big ring, and powered ahead of the girls wrestling her bike like an animal all the way. Erinne held on for sixth place and Christine finished eighth.

We definitely entered this race to win, but were very pleased with two top ten finishes in our only World Cup race of the season. Katheryn finished in the next group in 21st and Felicia in the low thirties, both very respectable finishes; Stefanie and Betina both finished without being pulled.

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