Tour of Chongming Island 2010

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WCN quicklink >>  Race 1  - Chongbei -Shanghai Fusheng Cup     Race 2 - Industrial Zone Cup    Race 3 - Chongming Xincheng Cup City Circuit

Race 3- Teutenberg wins by the smallest fraction to take overall victory and Sprint Classification

Chongming Xincheng Cup, City Circuit, Chongming Island, China, 79.2km

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Ina-Yoko Teutenberg (HTC Columbia) was very happy with her own and her teams performance on the final day of racing, “We won, we won, "said Teutenberg into her microphone on hearing the confirmation of the result. "As you could see there is not much difference between Kirsten and myself. It was a hard fight. Kirsten won the second sprint and I won the third, when it is tight like today, you can't let it go. I knew I had to win the final sprint. It isn't a nice game having to think about all the seconds on offer, but the team did a great job from 2km to get me to the line," she added. 

"I won by centimetres, it was so close I actually thought I hadn't got it. Normally you can tell when you've won, but this time we had to wait until it was confirmed. The whole stage was a tough battle, it was so flat it was hard to make any kind of difference. Kirsten got an intermediate sprint, and I got another, so we were tied on time. When I went for it at the end, she went for it too and it was a drag race right to the finish."

After bringing her total wins for the season to 11, Teutenberg is now looking forward to Sunday's World Cup race in Chongming. "It's going to be different, we've got a 140 kilometre race including ten kilometres over a bridge and ten kilometres back. But we've got a good team here, and we'll see what we can do." said Teutenberg.  

Kirsten Wild (Cervelo Test Team) was understandably disappointed not to have won the overall, but optimistic about her form and finally getting closer to Teutenberg in the sprints, "It was a great team job today. Ina is so strong, we tried all we could do and it was just millimetres," said Wild. 

Rochelle Gilmore (Australia) was a little disappointed to only come third today, especially after the team had worked so hard to close the break and give her the chance to compete in the intermediate sprints and finish sprint. “Third is ok when you see the calibre of sprinters in front of me. They are the two fastest sprinters in the world. I read a report recently that said I was the third fastest in the world and obvioulsy I am not very happy about that. It is early in the season, so I am going to go away and work on my power and hopefully I will get stronger as the season progresses, ” said Gilmore. 

"We were not really racing for the teams classification, the team were working to protect me. So to come third overall is a really great achievement," added Gilmore.

Gloria Presti (Top Girsl Fassa Bortolo) chatted about the success of the team this week. They had two riders in the top 10, Marta Tagliaferro and Alessandra D'Ettorre and secured second in the team competition only missing out by virtue of Kirtsen Wild's first place. "This is very good for our team. Today we knew that we had to finish in the top group to have a chance to win. We are on the same time as Cervelo but they got first. It has been a good week for us, " said Presti.


Iris Slappendel (Cervelo Test Team) played an important part of the success of the team in the over competition, “We fight for it today, Kirsten and Ina were equal. I think a little bit of luck and a lot of experience made the difference for Ina,” said Slappendel. 

Catherine Cheatley (New Zealand) punctured just before the last of the intermediate sprint. Her team mates stayed back to chase her back to the bunch, using up valuable energy but they got her back in. Cheatley was not disappointed with the teams performance over the three days, "It was bad timing, but the girls did a great job to bring me back. We have a few young girls here and it is a bit different to racing back at home for them. They have been doing really well and gaining lots of valuable experience. We have some riders across all disciplines in New Zealand and it was great to get an invitation to races like this," said Cheatley.

Ronny Lauke (Team Director - HTC Columbia) was extremely happy with the teams performance, "It was a great team victory today. All the girls wanted to make the victory happen. The first priority was the stage win but of course we knew that when we won the stage we would win the overall. They all fought really hard to make it happen. Of course if was close in the end but we won and that is all that matters."

"Tactically, we wanted to make the race aggressively, that suites our style of racing. After a couple of attacks though we realised that it wasn't going to happen and it was affecting the power output too much. We realised that we had to save everything for the final 2km and the girls made it happen," said Lauke.

Martin Barras (Team Director - Australia) is building a team for the future of Australian cycling, but it is nice to get some recognition and results now. Rochelle Gilmore is one of the senior Australian riders recruited to help the younger riders develop and her third place overall and the teams third place in the Team's competition is good for Australia. " We set a goal at the beginning of the year to develop a team of riders. We brought Rochelle here with the hope that we could get a good result and her third place and our third overall is a great achievement. For us the whole year has been about trying to do things well as a team, rather than just doing things individually. I think you have seen an extension of that with the three days of racing here. It is quite a good race. I have never been here before and I know that the standard of racing is better than in previous years. It has been a very positive experience for us and I am very pleased about that," said Barras.

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