Cervelo Lifeforce Pro Cycling were too good for the competition and showed why they are the leading time trial team in the world at the moment. They won the Open de Suede team time trial in a time of 38 minutes 56.7 seconds, over one minute ahead of the nearest team, Team Columbia Women, who finished in a time of 40 minutes 10.2 seconds.

The event was held in Vårgårda, Sweden and was run under hot and sticky conditions. Although the temperature had dropped from the 31 degrees reported at 11.00 am, it was still sitting at 26 degrees when the first riders rolled out at 6:30pm, local time for the out-and-back 32 kilometre test.

Initially it was Team Flexpoint who posted the fasted time at the first two checkpoints, but they slowed after the turn and lost time. Équipe Nürnberger Versicherung was in second place to Flexpoint at the turn and jumped briefly into the lead ‘on the road’ at 21.5 kilometres covered.

Team Columbia Women matched the time of Nürnberger to 9.5kilometres, but were slightly slower at the turn. They picked up the pace and pushed Nürnberger into third at the finish. Cervelo Lifeforce were last to start and posted the fastest times at all of the checkpoints. It was obvious that the defending World Cup Team Time Trial champions (who competed as Univega Pro Cycling when they won the Ladies Golden Hour in Denmark, 2006) would not be beaten. The team consisted of three 2008 Olympic Games nominees – National time trial champions; Karin Thürig and Christiane Soeder plus Priska Doppmann. Also in the line-up were Carla Ryan (former Australian time trial champion), Pascale Schnider and Sarah Duester.

Thomas Campana (Team Manager) was extremely happy with the Cervelo Lifeforce performance. “We are very happy. We were very concentrated before the race and everybody was very nervous because the favourite role was up to us and that was very hard. We have some young riders in the team but the team did an excellent ride and the time shows it”, he said

“To have the best individual time trialists does not mean you have the best team time trialists. We worked very hard yesterday, we tested the riders over 5km, very fast, to show them what it means to go fast and that they have to go 5 to 10km faster than in an individual time trial. So in the end they made it and quite comfortably, so I am very happy for the girls.

Petra Rossner (Team Columbia Women, Manager) was very happy with her team’s performance. “Considering we were down to four riders at 9.5km I am very happy with how we finished. You have to expect that when riders come out of hard tours like Thüringen and the World Cup race that they would have bad legs and it happened surprisingly early but we never gave up and the girls did a great job so it was not problem” said Rossner.

Jens Zemke (Équipe Nürnberger Versicherung) was very happy with the overall performance of his team in Sweden this week. “We are very pleased we have another podium today and with Charlotte’s [Becker] third place in the road race and today’s time trial this is a big success for us and we are very happy. We are building a new team and a lot of young riders so I think we will have a lot of success in the second part of the season. Suzanne De Goede is second in the World Cup and we have won over 30 races this year and I am sure there are more to come, so I am extremely happy.”

Judith Arndt (Team Columbia), although absent from the time trial because she is on her way to compete for Germany in the Olympic Games, still leads the individual World Cup rankings. Despite winning the team time trial, Cervelo Lifeforce only moved to second in the team ranking, now holding 361 points, 250 points behind Arndt’s Team Columbia squad, who lead with 611 points.

The next World Cup race is the GP de Plouay, in France on Sunday 23 August 2008.

(Credit: UCI)