Only two Americans will be taking part in the Tour of Chongming Island in China this weekend. The three day event held in Shanghai on, you guessed it, Chongming Island will feature three stages. Alison Tetrick and Erica Zaveta will be in the field for the US. Zaveta will be in her first Women’s World Tour event of the year while Tetrick has a season best finish of 66th in the Tour of Flanders.
Previous UCI Women’s World Tour Coverage:
La Fleche Wallonne Recap
The Americans came close to the top spot in La Fleche Wallonne Feminine but had to settle for the next two as Anna Van Der Breggen held off a challenge from Evelyn Stevens to win by eight seconds with Megan Guarnier third 22 seconds back. Carmen Small was the third American in the top 25 with a 12th place finish 53 seconds back. Kristabel Doebel-Hickok had her first finish of the year, a 54th place finish, though this was only her second race. Stevens’ second place finish was tied for the best finish by an American this year.
On the men’s side only one American cracked the top 50 as Peter Stetina tied his season high with a 35th place finish, 40 seconds behind the winner. Chad Haga had his best finish of the year in only his second race in 103rd while Lawson Craddock was 121st and over seven minutes behind the winner.
On the men’s side the next race is the 157.2 mile Liege-Bastogne-Liege on Saturday. The women will head to Asia as the Tour of Chongming Island in China will be held from May 6th through the 8th. Megan Guarnier sits fourth on the women’s tour after six races.
Previous UCI World Tour Coverage:
La Fleche Wallonne Preview
Wednesday is the next stop in both the UCI World Tour and the UCI Women’s World Tour as the two will both race in Belgium at La Fleche Wallonne. Both will start and end in the same place but the men will cover 121.8 miles in their race while the women cover 85.13 miles. The two top Americans in the women’s field are Megan Guarnier and Carmen Small who both have top five finishes already this year. Guarnier was second in the Trofeo Alfredo Binda-Comune di Cittiglio and was fourth in the most recent race, The Tour of Flanders. Small was fifth in the Gent-Wevelgem race. One rider, Amber Nelson, is making her first appearance of the year while Kristabel Doebel-Hickok is trying to finish a race for the first time after not finishing the season opening Strade Bianche.
On the men’s side the top competitor is Lawson Craddock who was ninth in last race, the Tour of the Basque Country, and 16th in his only other race this season, the Paris-Nice race. Larry Warbasse, Nathan Brown, Peter Stetina, and Alex Howes all are in the field as well having finished races in the top 50 this season.
Previous UCI World Tour Coverage:
Amstel Gold Race Recap
Tour of Flanders Recap
Megan Guarnier’s strong start to the 2016 UCI Women’s World Tour continued on Sunday with a fourth place in the Tour of Flanders finish two seconds behind winner, teammate, and tour leader Lizzie Armitstead. Guarnier’s team, Boels-Dolmans, went 1, 3, 4, 6 and has nearly doubled up their competition so far this year.
Fellow American Cory Rivera finished in 16th 2:03 back while Brianna Walle was 23rd at the same time. Other Americans in the top 100 included Katie Hall (62nd), Evelyn Stevens (63rd), Kaitlin Antonneau (65th), Alison Tetrick (66th), all 3:26 back, Jessica Cerra (4:41 back in 77th), and Leah Thomas (84th) and Alexis Ryan (87th) both 7:03 back.
The women’s tour’s next event is La Flèche Wallonne Féminine in Belgium on April 20th. Guarnier has quite a bit of space around her in the tour standing at fourth as she is 45 points behind third place and 40 points ahead of fifth. Ryan, who placed 87th, is fourth amongst riders who were born in 1994 or later.
On the men’s side of things there were only two Americans in the field. Taylor Phinney was in a pack 7:19 back of winner Peter Sagan and finished 61st while Tyler Farrar was 12:48 back in 117th.
On the team side American team Trek-Segafredo had the second place finisher in Fabian Cancellara while Dylan Van Baarle was in sixth for the Cannondale team. The highest finisher for the BMC team was Daniel Oss in 16th. BMC remains the highest ranked American team this year in third.
The men’s tour begins the six day Tour of the Basque Country tomorrow. It’s a mountainous event with 89 miles on deck for tomorrow. Americans in the field are Joey Rosskopf of BMC, Lawson Craddock and Alex Howes of Cannondale, Kiel Reijnen and Peter Stetina of Trek-Segafredo, Caleb Fairly and Carter Jones of Giant-Alpecin, and Larry Warbasse of IAM Cycling.