Some emerging thunder from Down Under and a young gun from the south dominated the men’s criterium at the $15,000 Giro di Burnaby while a Cowtown cyclist captured the women’s race in a photo finish.
Midway through the men’s 50-lap, 57-kilometre race, a trio of baby-faced riders took control. The threesome began with 14-second leads over the rest of the field on the 1.14-kilometre course. They consistently pounded out lap times of 88 to 92 seconds, eventually stringing the margin out to as high as 28 seconds and squashing any aspirations the pack may have possessed of catching them.
In the end, it was the youngest of the bunch to emerge triumphant as 19-year-old Campbell Stewart of New Zealand nipped Australian Liam Magennis, 20, at the finish line in 1:15:41.69. Brendan Rhim of Greenville, S.C., crossed just 1.12 seconds behind them to take third, although he did get a pretty sweet consolation prize.
“I guess I just kind of picked some strong guys. They were awesome out there and just the way that we worked together was perfect,” said Stewart, a four-time world junior track champion. “We had a few head looks during the last four to five laps. We just looked around at each other, sussing each other out and seeing what was going to happen. I guess we were pretty far cooked by then so it took a while to get to the finish, but it was good.”
In addition to the $2,600 first-place prize, Stewart collected a couple of sponsored $200 and $300 lap sprint prizes known as primes (pronounced preems). Sometimes in cycling the breakaway leaders agree to split the primes. Not this time.
“We each knew we were going to go for first, second and third eventually and fight through it. It was every man for himself,” said Stewart.
Magennis collected $1,300 for coming second and Rhim received $700. But on the second-last lap Rhim went on an all-out sprint to win the crowd prime of $4,000 collected from the spectators. That pot included an injection of $2,000 from Jim Bosa, whose Appia Development was a presenting sponsor. So Rhim was a pretty ecstatic Carolinian even though he came third.
“The earlier sprints we did I was getting beaten, so I figured at the line for the win I was probably going to lose. So I said to hell with it, I’ve got to go for the crowd prime. Part of crit racing is you’ve got to go for the gamble. Third place isn’t too bad either,” said Rhim, 21, with a smile.
Stewart didn’t realize how much money was at stake on the penultimate lap.
“I think if I knew that I would have given it a go, but he (Rhim) deserves it. He was coming hard on the front on the day,” said Stewart.
The Cycling New Zealand team member was third at Tuesday’s New West Grand Prix. (Both races are part of the nine-race, 10-day B.C. Superweek series.) He was on the podium when winner Florenz Knaeur called up his girlfriend, Alisha Drinkwater of Delta, and proposed to her. That wasn’t in his podium plans Thursday.
“It’s been the joke the whole time trying to get on the top step. But you need somebody to propose to first, so that makes it hard,” said Stewart with a laugh.
With no hope of catching the frontrunners, many riders dropped out, with only 53 of the 102 who started crossing the finish line.
Unlike the men’s race, no one took charge in the women’s, so only 14 of the 66 starters dropped out. In the end, it was another victory for the Rally racing team with Allison Beveridge of Calgary winning in a photo finish. It was the eighth podium finish in six races for Rally, who went without New West winner Kirsti Lay and Lily Williams on Thursday.
Beveridge, 24, nipped Winnipeg’s Leah Kirchmann, a former cross-country skier. They did the 40-lap, 45.6-km course in 1:09:02.83. The pack was so close the last finisher was only 33 seconds behind the winner.
“We have quite a few girls who can sprint and can (reel in) power riders. We have different sprints that can play to each girl’s strength. They bailed me out for the sprints, so I had the opportunity to sit in a bit more under cover and give it a good go at the line,” said Beveridge. “It’s a harder course to get away from, and we were down a few numbers. We are also heading into a pretty big stage next week so we started to be a little bit conservative with our efforts and give the sprints a good go and try and get the lead outs down a bit. We tried to play it a bit differently and it worked out.”
This year’s course was shortened to accommodate a beer garden on Hastings at Madison, where spectators sipping suds had a front-row view of a hairpin turn.
“The 180 (degree turn) is definitely a little bit different effort. Coming around the corner it’s more of a standing start. Coming from a track background a standing start is a bit more up my alley,” said Beveridge.
“I really like this course. This is my third time doing it. Every year it’s the same, really great crowd, really fun course. That 180 puts a good swing in the mix.”
Like Stewart, Beveridge won first-place prize money of $2,600. Kirchmann, 27, who was on Canada’s 2016 Olympic team and finished second overall in the women’s world tour last year, received $1,300 and third-place Josie Talbot of Wollongong, Australia got $700.
