Swiss Inline Cup, stage 6 July 10th 2004
Stage 6 of the Swiss Inline cup brings the KIA/Verducci team to the Swiss country town of Einsiedeln a small farming town on the outskirts of Zurich. Like most of the Swiss races it is in the mountains and the race runs near a beautiful lake. The view never gets old. This stage of the SIC is only 21km and is held as the national Swiss half marathon championships. With a Rainey week in Europe and it raining all day in Einsiedeln it looked like this was going to be the 1st rain race of the 2004 season for Kia/Verducci, but the clouds parted and yet again all the wet weather specialists were disappointed and the entire event was held in the dry, then the rain come.
The Course:
The start was in the town of Einsiedeln, went 1 lap around the lake and back into the town making it 18km, strangely enough 3 km short of the 21km half marathon distance. The course was rolling hills most of the way with 4 bigger hills thrown in just for fun. The finish was a 300m down hill followed by a 300m up hill then 200m slightly downhill with tailwind to the finish. The run-off area was also not a crowd pleaser with about 100m till the end of the road, lined with metal barriers.
Women’s race:
Kia/Verducci were stretched thin for this SIC race with Jessica, Nathalie, and Chae-Yi at home training for the up-coming World Championships in Italy leaving Theresa to fly solo in this event. National Verducci skater Ana Margarita Corrales of Colombia was the only other Verducci skater at this event.
With the race only being 18km, the pace was on at the start with Celine Weiss and Nadine Benz of Fila/Mentos attacking within 500m’s on the first hill, on what looked like a planned attack to escape. What they didn’t think of was in 2km there was a fast 70km/h downhill and not only did the pack catch the break with Theresa and the Salomon girls working on the front, but with the weight of the 40 skaters + in the bunch they went straight by. After that the hearts of the break-away skaters were broke, knowing that the race was going to be a sprint and that the current World marathon Champ/ WIC, SIC leader was sitting for the sprint. A few hopeful girls attacked on some of the climbs but made sure they were caught before the downhill so they don’t get passed and dropped. Theresa looking to protect her SIC lead went to the front with 7km to go to monitor the break-away attempts and stay away and out of trouble from the tiring skaters getting a bit of the wobbly leg syndrome. With 1000m to go where teams normally organize their lead outs for the finish it looked like they all decided that Theresa will be their lead out today, with the girls fighting like crazy to be on Theresa for the finish. For every 200m of the last 1000m Theresa had a different girl behind her up until Pia Knecht of Saab/Salomon got behind and Kung-fu’d anyone that looked like stealing her lead out. Meanwhile at the front Theresa cruised to an easy victory with no one able to pass. Andrea Haritchelhar of Bont was 2nd Ana Margarita following through for 3rd and her best position this season.
Final results:
1st Theresa Cliff-Ryan Kia/Verducci USA
2nd Andrea Haritchelhar Bont ARG
3rd Ana Margarita Corrales Verducci National COL
4th Nicole Begg Hyper NZL
5th Pia Knecht Saab/Salomon SUI
Men’s race:
The men’s race started like an 18km time trial, a few skaters that were caught unaware at the start losing a few meters gap were never able to come back on the pack. Every time the pace slowed down even 1km/h an attack went. Up the front most of the way was more Oceania skaters than Swiss with Scott Arlidge of VW SportXX (NZL) doing 4 big break-a-way attempts to try to tire competitors out for his Swiss team mates, Wayne Begg (NZL) and Danny Finster (AUS) of Bont doing a lot of the chasing, and Kalon Dobbin (NZL) Athleticum/Rollerblade looking like the lead out man for his Swiss team mates. Like the women no break-a-way attempts succeeded with the speed of the main bunch to high on the downhill sections. This was going to be a sprint finish. A miscalculation by Wayne Begg seen him start the sprint 3km away thinking the finish was just over the next hill, his body reminded him at the top of the second to last hill that you can’t sprint for 3km and he quickly went from front to back. The pack then slowed for 500m before the real sprint began. With all 3 of the big Swiss teams lining up for the sprint it was Athleticum/Rollerblade, FILA Mentos, then VW SportXX. Kalon Dobbin starting his teams lead out at the bottom of the last hill, stretching the field out up the hill and coming into the final 200m section 1, 2, and 3 for Athleticum. His lead out proved to be to strong with none of his team mates able to pass with Kalon winning, team mate Raphael Pfulg 2nd, and a fast finishing Marc Christen of FILA Mentos lunging and crashing his way into 3rd.
Final results:
1st Kalon Dobbin, Kalon Dobbin, Athleticum/Rollerblade NZL
2nd Raphael Pfulg Athleticum/Rollerblade SUI
3rd Marc Christen FILA Mentos SUI
4th Reto Felder Athleticum/Rollerblade SUI
5th Nicolas Iten FILA Mentos SUI
