Columbia Crushes at Home Race

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March 17, 2009 - Columbia University cycling obliterated the competition at their home race, The Cadence-Grant's Tomb Criterium! In the team points competition Columbia earned 93 points. Second place Army scored 65 while University of Vermont took third with 58. Columbia now leads the Ivy League Competition and holds 4th in the conference.

Columbia struck first in the men's D race when Dave Carbonell played a canny game of patience. The course favors sprinters and the men's D field has no clear sprint king. Carbonell let the primes go by and instead marked the attacks and focused on the finish. He struck first on the long drag for home and the energy he saved paved the way to the win.

Carrie Savage played a similar game in the women's B race. Early attacks faded and the group knew they were going for a big sprint. Savage took an inside line and came up with fourth. Aimee Layton, a new cyclist with a deep background in gymnastics, used her high octane muscle fibers to take sixth.

Maggie Shirley racked up a huge number of Columbia's team points in the women's A race. She made taking the first prime look easy by gapping the field. She also crushed the second one. Before Shirley could run away with the race completely a Harvard rider pipped her for the third one. Shirley took the fourth and fifth. In the sprint for the finish Shirley and the Harvard rider opened it up, gapped the rest and Shirley took second.

The best teamwork was again provided by the Columbia men's A team. After their great cooperative effort at Rutgers, they dialed up a new strategy and it worked perfectly. Early on in the race Alex Bremer broke away with three other riders. When Bremer's breakaway looked healthy, Lions Brian Gabele and Tony Hall answered every counter-attack with a simple proposition: if you keep going you'll have to take me up there and I'll make it two Columbia riders up front. Meanwhile Bremer was beating up his breakaway-mates and taking lots of primes. Bremer ditched them with three laps to go and rode home for the win solo. This victory was particularly sweet for Bremer, who has been the promoter of this race for the past three years.

Next up the Lions will travel to the University of Delaware for a long road race, individual time trial and criterium.