Rain kept the crowd down at Sunday’s Tom Bamford Lancaster Classic race, but die-hard fans were treated to good racing on the city’s streets.
Lancaster is usually a proving ground for younger, up-and-coming riders or a place for seasoned veterans from Europe. Last year, it was young Jackson Stewart of the Sierra Nevada team winning the race, with strong showings from Kiwi Greg Henderson and J.J. Haedo. All three of those riders returned this year, but rewarded for their standout performance with contracts with new teams.
This year, it was a European veteran - Austrian Bernhard Eisel of the German T-Mobile team - with the win. Riding with him was another race veteran, teammate Jakob Piil, of Denmark, who won the race in 1999 and 2004.
But, the weather may have been the undoing of Piil and much of the crowd. Only 83 riders finished what Scott Zwizwanski, of the Priority Health team, called a race of attrition. Zwizwanski should know. He hung on to finish 74th.
Piil, Henderson and Haedo were among the 76 riders who did not finish the race. One of those was Brad Viera, of Central Pennsylvania’s Rite Aid team. Viera was the only one in the men’s pro peloton to be riding at home. He is from Lancaster and is a Millersville University student. Viera led out his team’s strongest rider, Argentinian sprinter Alejandro Borrajo, in the beginning of the race and was spent early. Borrajo had a good showing, ultimately finishing seventh.
The women’s race and the men’s amatuer race winners were repeats of last year. German Ina-yoko Teutenberg, of T-Mobile beat out and Laura VanGilder, originally from the state’s coal region, in the women’s criterium race. James Carney, of the
Alliancep/b Bianchi team, again took the men’s race.
Carney and Teutenberg followed their wins in Lancaster last year with wins four days later in Reading. They will undoubtedly be looking to do that again. Races in Reading on Thursday begin with the amateur men at 11 a.m. The women race at 12:30 p.m. and the men’s professional race begins at 2 p.m.
