Columbia Roars to Second in Philly

March 9 - Columbia cycling defied torrential rain, bitter cold and powerful winds to take second overall at races this weekend, hosted by Philadelphia-area achools! This performance kept Columbia in the lead of the Ivy League Cup and into third in the conference.Visit our photo gallery to see the Lions in action.

This achievement is all the more impressive when one considers that Saturday's races had few bright spots for the team.  The course was set to be a road race. Damon Monticello suffered huge climbs and dangerous conditions to earn third in the men’s D race. But the rain fell in buckets as this first race progressed and local flooding forced the course to be changed to a criterium. Tony Hall got into a three-man breakaway and, despite crashing on the last lap, hung on for third.  The group chasing them, successfully blocked by Lion Brian Gabele, came around for the last lap and Brian looked set to take fouth… until he also crashed.  Columbia’s luck changed when the women’s A race hit the course.  Maggie Shirley and three other women broke away right from the start and stayed away for the whole race.  Maggie turned on the jets and took second.

Though the weather and bad luck limited the team on Saturday, on Sunday the strong winds actually helped.  The wind made the team time trial course favor bigger teams with more horsepower – something Columbia has a lot of.  It also allowed forced splits in the circuit race fields – making the Lions’ strategies more valuable. The team time trials were first and the Lions scored big points in every one.  With buoyed confidence, Damon Monticello continued the rout by sprinting solidly to take sixth in the D circuit race.  Then the Lions did something very special.

Dave Roche soloed off the front of the men’s C race and Corey Williams and Steve Marks immediately went to the front to slow the field down and chase counter-attacks. As Roche’s lead grew Columbia sprinter Joe Bylund made his way to a comfortable spot in the back and rested. Dave finished the race solo, up an incredible two minutes on the field.  In the sprint for second, Bylund had enough left to gap the field and take second!

Maggie Shirley started the women’s A race fast and found herself in a three woman group with the current conference points leader and one of our nation’s best sprinters. The trio pummeled the chasing field and left it up to a sprint.  Shirley took third.  Alex Bremer also got into a breakaway in the men’s A race.  It was bigger but had less firepower than the women’s A race, so Bremer did a lot of work.  Army, Princeton, and Vermont let them go as they marked each other.  When they did start to chase, it was too late.  Bremer dropped all but one of the people in the break on the climb, then toasted him in the sprint for first!

Next week the Lions will host their home race, the Grant’s Tomb Criterium, in New York City on Saturday.  On Sunday they will travel to Princeton.  Their performance this weekend brings up two interesting possibilities.  Will Columbia make history by winning its home race for the first time?  And, will that vault them into the lead of the conference for the first time?  Stay tuned to find out.

Team Results