The sprinters had their day within the high-speed end of Saturday’s Crystal Cup at the Armed Forces Cycling Classic, with Reign Storm-JLL’s Alfredo Rodriguez and Legion of Los Angeles’ Kendall Ryan taking victory of their respective races. Sunday’s Clarendon Cup, with its technical corners and longer period, offered a extra wide-open, dramatic day of racing.
The Women
When requested about her method for Clarendon after taking the weekend’s first win, Kendall Ryan appeared assured that she and her Legion squad might take an analogous method and arrange a profitable dash once more on Sunday. It gave the impression to be working coming into the closing laps of Clarendon as Legion took management of the entrance and honed in on the repeat victory. They had weathered a heavy storm of assaults all through the race, making their job a lot more durable than the day earlier than.
The discipline was way more lively within the earlier laps, with DNA-Blue Halo attacking nearly constantly and attempting to enhance on their tenth-place end from the day earlier than. The most threatening assault of the day got here from CCB-NT Concepts’ Cecille Lejeune, who held off the Legion chase for a number of laps and earned the jersey for the day’s Most Heroic Rider. Those assaults splintered the peloton, with upwards of fifty of the ninety-plus starters getting dropped earlier than the finale.
On the bell lap, we noticed a full-on drag race between DNA, Legion and Virginia’s Blue Ridge 2024 going into nook one. As the ultimate lead-out riders pulled off on the ending straight, it was the identical three groups speeding in direction of the road. Kendall Ryan hit out early as she had the day earlier than, however this time 2024’s Marlies Mejias managed to cling to her wheel, and the pair had been wheel to wheel with fifty meters to go. Mejias unleashed a superbly timed bike throw to take the race and, with it, the general omnium title for the second straight yr. Ryan adopted in second, and DNA’s rising Canadian star Sarah Van Dam took the ultimate podium spot.
Results
1. Marlies Mejias – Virginia Blue Ridge 2024
2. Kendall Ryan – DNA-Blue Halo
3. Sarah Van Dam – L39ion
The Men
The 100-lap, 100-kilometer males’s race at Clarendon supplied an excellent battleground to pit a number of the world’s greatest criterium specialists in opposition to highly effective highway race-focused squads like Project Echelon-Ual-Aon. Clarendon defies specialization, and the victory requires a singular combination of velocity, endurance, race IQ and talent from riders and their groups.
The pack was single-file for the primary third of the race, and the tempo by no means wavered resulting from unrelenting assaults and responses. The race began with 150 riders however shrank each lap because the velocity and a number of other crashes took their toll. Reign Storm-JLL used their deep squad to mark each transfer and ensure one among their fast-finishers was in each potential breakaway. Teams like Echelon, Ribble, Miami Blazers, and Legion examined them lap after lap, and gaps lastly began to open.
At the midway mark, the sector misplaced its grip on the attackers, and 7 riders pushed out a thirty-second hole. Echelon had two highly effective rouleurs in, Sam Boardman and Brendan Rhim who had been joined by Reign’s Bryan Gomez and Miami’s Noah Granigan, amongst others from Legion and Ribble. Every main crew was represented, and the pack behind misplaced steam with out a lot incentive to chase. Three extra riders made it throughout, together with an unbelievable solo bridge from underdog Marcos Mendez of the Rockland Devo crew.
From there, Echelon executed a tactical grasp class, displaying the category that has put them atop so many podiums already this yr. Rhim and Boardman acknowledged that they might seemingly lose in a dash in opposition to a sprinter like Gomez and started skipping turns to hedge in opposition to that risk. When the breakaway got here near lapping the sector and providing Gomez an opportunity to reunite along with his dominant crew lead-out prepare, the Echelon riders left in the principle group went to the entrance and raised the tempo to maintain the breakaway behind.
Rhim, the 2022 Clarendon champion, was seemingly the one rider that nobody within the breakaway wished to let up the highway. But when the time got here below ten laps to go, there wasn’t something they might do about it. With brisker legs and one of many greatest engines within the race, Rhim attacked alone, and nobody might reply. His hole solely grew because the laps ticked away, and he spent the final lap celebrating with the followers lining the course and absorbing an emphatic win. Mendez took the dash behind for a breakthrough victory, adopted by Boardman, who made it a one-three end for Echelon. Gomez clinched the omnium for the REIGN squad with a fourth-place end, and Jim Brown rounded out the highest 5.
It was a surprising finale and a becoming finish to a different yr of world-class racing at the Armed Forces Cycling Classic. We can stay up for a good greater spectacle in 2025 when the race’s first day strikes onto the streets of the National Mall in central DC for what might change into essentially the most iconic backdrop for racing in America.
Results
1. Brendan Rhim – Project Echelon
2. Marcos Mendez – Project Echelon
3. Sam Boardman – Project Echelon
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