WomensCycling.net - race coverage, World Cup

Nicole Cooke took an emphatic victory in Geelong. The young Welsh rider attacked three times in the closing kilometres of the race. The third time, she managed to get some space between herself and the bunch of around 35 riders, taking with her Oenone Wood (T-Mobile), Nikki Egyed (AIS) and Susanne Ljungskog (Team Flexpoint). The four riders accelerated towards the finish along the waterfront in the Victorian city of Geelong in Australia with the bunch not keen to let them out of sight. The final 5km were tough, Susanne Ljungskog was not able to stay with the other three riders and drifted back into the bunch. As Cooke, Wood and Egyed came into sight on the finishing straight, they were already sprinting. Cooke was ahead and remained ahead all the way to the line. Wood fought, but was not able to match Cooke's sprint. Egyed was third, a length behind Wood.

The bunch finished 6 seconds behind the podium placegetters. Ina-Yoko Teutenberg led the sprint in to the finish and coasted the last few metres over the line, fourth place secure. The rest of the bunch continued to compete, vital World Cup points were on offer to riders finishing all the way down to twentieth.

The race was developed into what looked might become a procession, after an early break went away, extra riders joined it and the advantage rose to over 31/2 minutes. With the main teams represented in the break, it seemed that the eleven riders might be allowed to fight it out at the finale... The T-Mobile team had other plans, though. With sprinters Oenone Wood and Ina-Yoko Teutenberg in the bunch, the 'magenta train' moved into action with a couple of laps remaining. The Raleigh Lifeforce team, with Sarah Duester in the break, would have been happy to see the eleven riders caught, as it meant Nicole Cooke in the bunch was brought back into contention for the victory.

The acceleration by T-Mobile which launched a huge effort from all those behind to bring their sprinters up to the eleven, after Linda Villumsen had policed the attack all morning, caused the race to split apart in the main bunch. As well as the break being caught, the bunch was broken in two by the increase in pace, which resulted in a leading bunch of about 35 riders with about 25km to go.

Nicole Cooke (Raleigh Lifeforce) capitalised on the work done by T-Mobile and launched an attack on the final climb. She had to try three times, until she got away with Oenone Wood, Nikki Egyed and Susanne Ljungskog . It was Cooke, Wood and Egyed who sprinted for the win. Cooke was unchallenged on the line, whilst Wood easily took second from the rising prospect in the AIS team, Nikki Egyed.

Back to Top

Post Race Comments

“I’m speechless, this is great,” said Nicole Cooke after the finish, “We were lucky that we had some options with our team; we’ve been training in Australia as a team and we were able to change our riders and bring a reinforcement in today, “ said Cooke of the decision for Patricia Schwager to replace Serena Trachsel in the Raleigh Lifeforce team after the Geelong Tour which finished Thursday, “Serena was really suited to the punchy climbs in the Tour and worked really well and Patricia was more suited to today.” She continued, “It was a course where anything could happen.”

Oenone Wood who took second reflected on her ride “A win would have been nice, but we gave it our best,” she hinted at the choices which the strong T-Mobile team had even in the closing kilometres; “Even at the finish there, the bunch only finished 50 metres behind us and we had Ina (Teutenberg) sitting in there ready to sprint, so I was of two minds coming into the finish.”

Winning team manager, Thomas Campana was ecstatic “That was our best victory!” As a manager, he was not worried about the break, “We were not here to win today, we were here to keep the situation under control, because the race usually splinters, we were just sitting and waiting…”

Back to Top

Results - Top 10 Click for full result

115km, 36.76km/h

1 Nicole Cooke (Raleigh Lifeforce Creation) 3:07:42

2 Oenone Wood (T-Mobile)

3 Nikki Egyed (Australia)

4 Ina-Yoko Teutenberg (T-Mobile) @ 00:00:06

5 Angela Brodtka (Germany)

6 Joanne Kiesanowski (Raleigh Lifeforce Creation)

7 Regina Schleicher (Équipe Nürnberger)

8 Trixi Worrack ((Équipe Nürnberger)

9 Annette Beutler (Team Flexpoint)

10 Emma Rickards (Raleigh Lifeforce Creation)

Back to Top

Photos Click on any image to enlarge >>

Back to Top

Want to contact WomensCycling.net?

The WomensCycling.net email address is

To contact the webmaster, the address is :

Type this address into the "To" line of a new email message in your email programme.

The WomensCycling.net email address is displayed as a graphic in order to reduce the amount of 'spam' email received from programmes which 'crawl' the internet for sites with addresses displayed in text and then overwhelm that address with junk, or even forge the address in junk messages that they generate and send to others. Sorry for any inconvenience this approach causes you.