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Olympic Road Race: Two among the top eight
10 August, 2008 – At the today’s Olympic Road Race in Beijing, three riders from the Cervélo-Lifeforce Pro Cycling Team Christiane Soeder (AUT), Priska Doppmann (SUI) and Kristin Armstrong (USA) were for their nation at the start. Over the challenging 126,34 km long course including the final laps next two the famous Chinese wall, 66 athletes from all over the world measured their shape in heavy rain conditions.
On the last round, the decisive attacks were launched. Shortly ahead of the highest point the Italian Taiana Guderzo was searching her luck in the escape. After a few kilometers Christiane Soeder react and chased together with three other top riders Guderzo. The group caught Guderzo soon and built a 5-riders-group. The peleton was not working together and so the group could hold their advantage on the downhill, supported by the wind from the backside and reached the slightly inclined final straight together. From the last position of this 5-riders-group, the sprinter Cooke attacked and took the Olympic title. Second finished Emma Johansson (SWE) while Tatiana Guderzo took the third place. Unfortunately, Christiane Soeder was not honored for her very active work and edged out of the podium by finishing fourth.
Priska Doppmann showed as well a great performance and secured the seventh place by taking the second place in the bunch sprint behind Mariannae Vos (NED). For the 37-year-old Doppmann is that the best Olympic rank ever in her long career after the 9th place in the Olympic time trial in Athens.
The third rider from the Cervélo-Lifeforce Pro Cycling Team, the US-American Kristin Armstrong took the 25th place, 43 seconds behind Cooke. The shape of the rides is on the right level. We can look forward to the next race on Wednesday, the time trial. In addition to the three riders Soeder, Doppmann and Armstrong, Karin Thürig will be at the start for her home country Switzerland.
More information: http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/INF/CR/RPT/CRW012101.shtml#CRW012101
Result:
1 Nicole Cooke (GBR) 3.32.24 (35.706km/h)
2 Emma Johansson (SWE) 0.00
3 Tatiana Guderzo (ITA) 0.00
4 Christiane Soeder (AUT) 0.04
5 Linda Villumsen Serup (DEN) 0.09
6 Marianne Vos (NED) 0.21
7 Priska Doppmann (SUI) 0.21
8 Paulina Brzezna (POL) 0.21
9 Edita Pucinskaite (LTU) 0.21
10 Zulfiya Zabirova (KAZ) 0.21
…
25 Kristin Armstrong (USA) 0.43
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10.08.2008
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