HTC-Highroad women win World Cup team time trial
HTC-Highroad's women's team won Friday's Open de Suède Vargarda team time trial in Sweden, the opening event of two-race weekend that is part of the UCI's women's World Cup.
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HTC-Highroad’s women’s team won Friday’s 42.5km Open de Suède Vargarda team time trial in Sweden, the opening event of two-race weekend that is part of the UCI’s women’s World Cup.
The HTC squad included Judith Arndt, Charlotte Becker, Amber Neben and Eleonora Van Dijk. Each member of the winning team received 35 individual World Cup points.
World Cup leader Marianne Vos’ Nederland Bloeit team was fifth, so she received 16 points. Unofficially she retains her World Cup lead by a good margin.
“We’ve been close several times here, three times second in previous years, and this time we finally got the win so we’re very pleased,” said HTC-Highroad team manager Ronny Lauke. “The whole team did a great job, they were amazing. We were already thirty-five seconds ahead of the rest of the field at the first checkpoint so that was really motivating because that was where we’d lost time last year.”
“(Time trial coach) Lars Teutenberg did a lot of work with the riders; we’d done team time trial practice at a training camp. And as individuals they are all very strong time triallists. It all adds up.”
The World Cup weekend continues with a road race Sunday.
“The big goal of the weekend was the team time trial,” Lauke said.
“We’ve won that, so we can be a little bit more relaxed, but who knows? After what I’ve seen today and the way the riders performed, another victory here in Sweden certainly isn’t out of the question.”
Quick results:
- 1. HTC HIGHROAD WOMEN 53:09
- 2. AA DRINK – LEONTIEN.NL CYCLING TEAM +1:37
- 3. GARMIN – CERVELO +1:43
- 4. AUSTRALIA +1:44
- 5. NEDERLAND BLOEIT +1:55