19th International Tour De Toona -  Pennsylvania, USA

25^th July - 31^st July 2005

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Stage Review - Stage 4  GMC / Pontiac Hollidaysburg Circuit Road Race  96.6km

 reproduced with kind permission from the International Tour De Toona and Mariane Werz O'Brien

Holy Breakaways, Batman! What a race! The only calm in the entire race was when the honor roll was called to bring the race luminaries to the start line. Within the first mile a brutal attack was launched by a TEAm Lipton racer, before the motos could get her number a Victory Brewing racer answered the challenge! It was attack after attack, coming with such fierce speed that the leading caravan was caught scrambling to get out of the way on several occasions! A wild, wild ride for the first five miles.

By mile eight a definitive break of nine women had snapped the elastic and left the peloton behind. Subway’s Melissa Sanborn, Ford-Basis’ rider (and Toona diarist!) Chrissie Ruitter, Quark racer Helen Kelly, Webcor’s Felicia Greer, T-Mobile’s Kori Seehafer, Squadra Coppi’s Erin Mirabella, Victory Brewing’s Amy Moore, TEAm Lipton’s Meredith Miller, and Colavita’s Catherine Powers.

These women set a smoking pace throughout the race, working well together in a double pace line. The gap hit 1’22” as they stormed the first Queen of the Mountains climb, grew to 1’35” as they cruised the rollicking descent to the start/finish line to start lap number two!

By the start of the bell lap they had 2’18” over the peloton, which was showing signs of awakening from it’s slumber.(In all fairness to the peloton these ladies were not a threat to the heads of state and nine teams were represented in the break.) There were repeated attempts from the main field in the last lap get a break and to initiate a chase, but none succeeded. And the gap kept growing, reaching three minutes at 10 k to go!

Never faltering the breakaway group kept the blistering pace up working as a single team until just before 1k to go when T-Mobile’s Kori Seehafer blasted off to a beautiful solo victory! Her break companions just didn’t have the gas left to follow her acceleration and instead they sprinted hard for second.

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Results - Stage 4  GMC / Pontiac Hollidaysburg Circuit Road Race    96.6km