Individual Victories Abound at Fitchburg

Please visit our photo gallery from the race

7/6/2010 - The Lions took on the nation's top competition at the 51st Fitchburg Longsjo Classic. For the men, the race was four stages: a circuit race, road race, individual time trial and criterium. The women's race covered the ITT and criterium.

The Columbia men struggled in the men's 4 circuit race. They had tourble getting into the right position on the hilly course. Mikey Schulman finally got a good spot and just in time. With one lap to go he looked like he was ready to rock but a crash delayed him! The men were disappointed but looked forward to the road race. It was a beast of a course. The climbs were long and hard and the descents were challenging. Francesco Leonardi came in with the lead group and scored fourth! Schulman and James Stoeckl finished in the grupetto. The next morning we were on to the time trial. The men finished respectably and held their GC spots. They hurried home to get some rest out of the heat, which was building. At the start of their critierium the bank thermometer said it all - 95 degrees! Schulman got into an early breakaway that got caught. The competition was dropping out of the race left and right but the Columbia men were determined to complete this long, hard and now sweltering race.

The Columbia women kicked off with the time trial. After two days of rest, light training and watching their teammates, they were anxious to get going. Shane Ferro and Carrie Savage finished in the middle of the field and looked forward to their specialties - the criterium. The women's criterium was earlier in the day than the men's but still was sweltering. Right from the start Ferro was showing some signs of heat exhaustion so she decided to do her best for her teammate. Every time the pace of the field dropped Ferro went to the front and whipped it up again, popping numerous competitors off the back and out of the race. This allowed Savage to take thefirst prime. Afew laps later the heat knocked Ferro out of the race and Savage tucked into the group. On the last lap she lauched an early attack, passed a group of leaders and rode on to victory!