Trek-Livestrong's Ben King, 21, blasted off on a 50-mile solo flyer on Sunday to win the road race of the USA Cycling Pro Championships in Greenville, S.C.
Coupled with Saturday's ever-so close time trial victory by Trek Livestrong's Taylor Phinney, 20, and you'd have to agree that the future of US cycling is in very good hands.
The championships might have served as a passing of the guard from one generation to the next. Phinney beat Levi Leipheimer by a wink in the time trial on Saturday, and King out-rode the efforts of Leipheimer and defending champion George Hincapie in their futile chase.
After the race, King was quoted:
“I just got permission to announce that I will be riding for RadioShack next year. I'm sure winning this race will help a lot with my future. One of the things that kept me going in the final circuits was having Allen Lim and Jose Azevedo in the team car come up to me.”
The Sunday cycling road race wasn't much of a contest until Hincapie and Leipheimer launched their chase. Riding with a 9 minute gap most of the day, suddenly King found himself 3 minutes ahead of the remaining cyclists on the final 4-mile circuit.
How it started
King joined a small breakaway on the opening circuits around Greenville. In spite of the strategy by Hincapie's BMC cycling team not to let anyone get too far up the road, the breakaway quickly gained more than 9 minutes.
After the circuits around Greenville, the peloton had four laps of 22 miles over Paris Mountain. On the third of these, with about 50 miles left in the race, King attacked his two breakaway companions.
It reminded observers of his U-23 national cycling championship – road race – win in Bend, Oregon, in June, when King beat the field with a 25-mile solo effort. He also won the criterium nationals at that meeting.
Hot weather takes toll
As over-heated cyclists started dropping out of the chasing peloton by the last long lap, King's lead began to dwindle toward 7 minutes. But growing in Virginia, King must be used to this hot, humid weather.
On the last lap up Paris Mountain, Leipheimer and Hincapie attacked and soon closed the gap to 4:45. Race radios aren't allowed in the nationals, so King didn't know there was a serious chase going on until the team car drove up alongside.
With 11 miles to go on the three Greenville circuits, King still had a 4-minute lead over Hincapie and Leipheimer. The two were eventually caught by what was left of the peloton, then BMC took charge of the remaining cyclists and started the chase.
Last lap
On the last 4-mile circuit in Greenville, King raced in full time-trial tuck with the peloton just less than 3 minutes behind. He didn't give up much on the final circuit, however, and won handily by 1:34.
Alex Candelario of Kelly Benefit Strategies took second and Keil Reijnen of Jelly Belly was unofficially listed at third.
Kudos to the Trek-Livestrong team for developing some top-notch cyclists for our future in racing. I'm sure owner Lance Armstrong, team manager Bert Knaggs and team director Axel Merckx all deserve credit.
Sunday: Road race
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