Columbia Crushes at Home Race Please visit our photo gallery. March 24, 2009 - March 30, 2009 – Columbia Cycling took 9th overall at the Philly Phlyer, a three-race weekend hosted by schools in the Philadelphia area. Columbia remains second in its conference behind University of Vermont and on top of the Ivy League. Columbia won this race in each of the two previous seasons but this year was hampered by its own success. Several Lions also ride for national level teams and they were called up to ride at the Redlands Bicycle Classic this week. But the depth of this year’s team kept things interesting... The Lions were very strong in the Team Time Trial. The men’s B team put together a great start and solid workmanship to finish 4th. The men’s A team struggled on the climb but finished a respectable 7th. The woman’s B team earned 4th, a huge surprise when you consider their spate of bad luck which included going off the course, a flat, and being forced to come to a fell stop by a flock of geese that crossed the road. At next week’s TTT the women should take next week’s race by storm. The criterium was a more strategic affair. Overnight thunderstorms and morning fog kept the road slick and dangerous. Columbia’s men’s Ds decided to go for safer intermediate sprints and Jorge Barragan led the team. In the men’s C race, Chad Husko did some great bike handling and off-road riding to avoid a crash, but could not chase back up to help Dave Carbonnel in the sprint. In the men’s A race, Tony Hall got into a breakaway. Lion Peter Chiu did some great blocking. But a huge push by the Princeton team brought the group back together with one to go. Chiu got caught in traffic and couldn’t hit the jets. Next week the Lions go back to one of their favorite races, hosted by The United States Military Academy, where they will compete in a team time trial, uphill individual time trial, circuit race and criterium. |