Jazz Apple Cycling Team Crunches Competition
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Jazz Apple Cycling Team Crunches Competition In Last Canadian Race
New Zealand’s ENZA sponsored Jazz Apple Cycling Team has chalked up yet another win with team member Lauren Ellis taking out the women’s field in Canada’s Tour de White Rock road race.
The 19
year old Jazz Apple rider blitzed competition last weekend
with a time of two hours, 44 minutes, 28.24 seconds, nearly
four minutes ahead of teammate Ruth Corset (2:48.21.94) and
Calgary's Steph Roorda who was third with the same time as
Corset.
The race is the last of eight events in BC
Superweek – British Columbia’s premier cycle event.
When Ellis got out of bed on Sunday morning she was
hoping there was enough strength left in her legs to get her
through the 80.8 kilometre Tour de White Rock road race,
especially after riding the seven BC Superweek races over
the previous nine days.
"I was just hoping that my legs
were going to feel good and not going to cramp up or
anything," says Ellis, a track cyclist who is only in her
first year of road racing.
Ellis, from the town of Hinds
near Christchurch, was a bronze medallist on the track in
the individual pursuit at the 2007 world junior
championships, after winning a silver in the event in 2006.
Sunday was her first career road win.
Team manager and
rider, Susy Pryde, says the young cyclist put up an
incredible display of strength.
“Lauren proceeded to
crest climb after climb on the 10 kilometre circuit alone
with only her Pacific counterparts accompanying her crusade.
As Ellis' lead extended to over three minutes, me and Ruth
settled in to the coveted role out of the wind, nullifying
any threats to the growing lead,” says
Pryde.
“Willfully crunching through the taxing two and
half hour event, Ellis had abundant time to enjoy an
emphatic victory in front of the marvelling
crowd.”
Corset, who was third in Friday’s hill climb
and second in the criterium on Saturday night, secured the
overall White Rock victory with her impressive sprinting and
climbing consistency.
This spells the end to the ENZA sponsored Jazz Apple Team’s most successful BC Superweek yet, having swooped two overall wins in Delta and White Rock, as well as podium finishes in Gastown and Burnaby.
The team now returns to the United States for
their final two races; the San Francisco Twilight Criterium
on July 26 and Foster City Grand Prix on July 27, also in
California.
Ends