 |
Open de Suede Vargarda 127.6km Nicole Cooke Places 2nd and increases lead as main challenger fails
Nicole Cooke 23, the recent winner of the Grande Boucle – the women’s Tour de France, extended her lead in the Women’s Cycling World Cup, to a significant margin in Sweden tonight. Cooke finished 2nd to Ljungskog who delighted the home crowd with a win in this first ever running of a World Cup in Sweden.
Cooke broke away with Susanne Ljungskog (Swe) and Magali LeFloch (Fra) in lap 8 of the 11 lap race, leaving her main competitors for the season long competition, Judith Arndt (Ger) and Onene Wood (Aus) in a 3rd group some minutes down. In the next lap, LeFloch could not hold the pace and dropped back to the chasing group of 5. In the sprint Ljungskog narrowly beat Cooke, with a gap to the chasers of 22 sec and Arndt and Wood trailing in later.
Cooke now has a commanding lead in the series and looks set to win again. In 2003 she became the youngest ever winner of the competition, but the last two seasons have been blighted by recovering from crashes and surgery. Wood won the title in 2004 and 2005. [106 riders started representing 22 Nations started this evening’s race.] On Sunday the next round takes place in Arhus Denmark. This will be a time trial for teams. Again Cookes Univega Raleigh team will be challenging the strong rostas of the German T Mobile unit and Nuremburger squad.
Results
- 1 Susanne Ljungskog Buitenpoort – Flexpoint Team 03:11:55 127.6km 40.2km/hr
- 2 Nicole Cooke Unuivega Pro Cycling Team
- 3 Monica Holler Bigla Cycling Team @ 25 sec
- 4 Trixi Worrack Equipe Nuernberger Versicherung @ 27 sec
- 5 Annette Beutler Buitenpoort – Flexpoint Team @ 33 sec
Overall World Cup Standings after 8 of 12 Rounds
- 1 Nicole Cooke (Gbr) 319 pts
- 2 Judith Arndt (Ger) 220
- 3 Susanne Ljungskog (Swe) 167
- 4 Onone Wood (Aus) 150
For further details about the World Cup events go to:
