If Eddy Merckx politely asks you to attack in a race, the correct response is to follow the man’s wishes. That’s the position Alison Tetrick (Optum Pro Cycling p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies) found herself in at the start of stage 3 of the Ladies Tour of Qatar.
After missing the main split on stage 2, Tetrick was eager to prove herself today. She was the first rider to attack, almost from gun, and built up a lead of around 40 seconds before she was eventually reeled in by the peloton.
“I wanted to test out the wind and see what as going on. My team director Pat McCarty was on board with the plan, but Eddy told me this morning to give a little attack so I had to do that for sure,” she told Cyclingnews this evening.
“I thought it would be fun to get a non-threatening break going before the more decisive moves would occur. Also it was taking a bit of a gamble on what the wind was going to do. It didn’t go according to plan but it’s good to get out there and get fitness from that.”
Elvin shows her attacking spirit
One rider who has been aggressive throughout the race is Orica-AIS’s Gracie Elvin. When she’s not filming these insightful video blogs, she’s donning her team colours and racing at the front in the Tour of Qatar. For the second day the Australian gave an impressive account of herself, attacking several times in the finale in a bid to win the stage.
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“I was away a lot of times. We’ve had experience on this course before and it’s definitely worth making a few attacks if you can. Also within the last 15 kilometres Boels was actually being quite aggressive with a couple of their girls attacking, too. It was up to us to go with them and then try and put them on the back foot with our own attacks,” she told Cyclingnews at the finish.
“We nearly pulled it off and it was a fun out there.”
Hosking misses out but makes Boels work
Another Australian who helped animate the race was Wiggle Honda’s Chloe Hosking. She picked up both intermediate sprints and ahead of the final dash for the line, sat just one second down on the overall.
However a mistake in the sprint cost her dearly and she finished fourth and out of the all-important time bonuses.
“I won the two intermediate sprints with help from the girls. Then in the last 20k we hit a cross-wind section and Boels just went nuts. Jolien d'Hoore got in good move and I was hoping that would stick so that the girls not in GC could take the bonus seconds but we caught them and then it was just chaos,” she told Cyclingnews at the finish.
“Then even though Jolien had been in the break she gave me an awesome lead-out but we went with around 500 to go and I missed her jump. Then I was swamped and I finished fourth, which is really bad because I now think that the GC is gone. I’m disappointed. The best I can hope for now is second on GC but we’ll see what happens tomorrow."
Daniel Benson was the Editor in Chief at Cyclingnews.com between 2008 and 2022. Based in the UK, he joined the Cyclingnews team in 2008 as the site's first UK-based Managing Editor. In that time, he reported on over a dozen editions of the Tour de France, several World Championships, the Tour Down Under, Spring Classics, and the London 2012 Olympic Games. With the help of the excellent editorial team, he ran the coverage on Cyclingnews and has interviewed leading figures in the sport including UCI Presidents and Tour de France winners.
