Chrono des Nations

Parcours - the women's route is in pink (click to enlarge)

21.10.12 Official site
France, Time Trial, 20.870km
UCI 1.1

It seems incredible that the Tour of Qatar was eight months ago - yet the Chrono des Nations was the final UCI professional women's race of the 2012 road racing season. (Worry not - we now have several months of fantastic cyclo cross to keep us going through the winter months!)

Team USA's Amber Neben won last year (for the two years prior to that it was Jeannie Longo, who also won the first women's edition of the race back in 1987 as well as in 1992, 1995 and 2000 - she was eighth this year) and was easy favourite to win again this year: she did not disappoint her legions of fans with a stunning ride in slippery conditions, taking 28'34.38" to get around the 20.87km parcours and beating closest rival Alison Tetrick of Exergy Twenty12 by 1'08". Tetrick will be happy enough, however - her second place marks a return to form following injury earlier in the year. Edwige Pitel, riding for ASPSA Grenoble, may be 45 years old but put the finishing touch to a superb season in which she won a bronze medal at the French Individual Time Trial Championships and took first place at the Memorial Davide Fardelli when she crossed the line with a time 18" behind Tetrick, placing her in third place.

Amber Neben

Current Swiss ITT Champion Patricia Schwager, riding for a national team rather than her usual GSD-Gestion, was fourth with 30'03.71". Marijn de Vries was Déesses' top "rider to watch" tip - the Dutch woman has had excellent form over the last few months and a turn of speed to match. With the sad news that her AA Drink-Leontien.nl will not continue into 2013, there was every reason to expect her to end the season on a high point and she did so with a superb fifth place, getting around the course in 30'`15.83".

An interesting fact for you: the Elite Men's race was 48.5km, the women's race was 20.870km. Some might say this justifies the men getting bigger prizes - after all, they did more work. Yet Neben won only €379, compared to the €5,785 that Tony Martin won in the Elite Men's race. In other words, the women did 43% of the work done by the men, yet the winner received a prize equal to only 6.55% of that received by the winning man. The total prize fund on offer to the women was €2,478, 16.55% of the €14,977 fund for the men. No matter which way you look at it, there's no justifying that.

The Parcours
The race began at the Place de la Gare on the Rue du Onze Novembre 1918 and sent the riders immediately into a long and mostly straight (except for the slight bend to the left near the end) 0.68km to the first corner; since this section sloped gently downhill spectators were treated to some spectacularly fast starts. The first corner was a tight right-hander into the Rue Nationale (D755) at a bar called La Tonnelle - while the corner was wide, the Nationale is one of the main truck routes in and out of Les Herbiers and with several small industrial units nearby there was a potential risk of fuel spillages on the road surface and most riders grabbed a big handful of brake going into it. Right from the first corner the parcours began to climb, then descended again after 2.25km; then climbed once more to the second right-hand corner 6.63km from the first at La Croix Barat, the highest point on the route reaching 170m above sea level after approximately 65m of climbing in 2km - an average gradient of around 3.25%, but more like 7% in places. This corner, more sweeping than the last, has had a traffic island slightly off-set from the centre added to prevent cars taking it at too high a speed, thus making it a relatively technical section.

Marijn de Vries

Once around the corner, the riders were on the D79 leading south for 2.6km to the third right corner. The road, like the previous two, is fairly straight with only wide, sweeping bends, but trees alongside are dropping their leaves at this time of year - another potential hazard when wet and slippery. The terrain descends for most of the distance, gently at first and then more steeply in the final third of the section before a short rise at the end. The corner is sharp, but with plenty of room for a bike allowing riders to negotiate it at speed. The following section, La Bonneliere, carries the riders through 4.29km into St-Paul-en-Pareds, a flat route with only a couple of 10m climbs before a descent over the final kilometre; other than more dropped leaves it looks to be free of conceivable hazards.

After following the Rue de l'Eglise and the D23 - more straight, non-technical roads - through St-Paul-en-Pareds, the race reaches a fourth right turn and begins heading north back towards Les Herbiers. The corner is very wide, not sharp and shouldn't cause any rider any problems; it leads into an initially bendy, then straight 2.82km section through forest to a roundabout on the D23, climbing approximately 30m over the first half. Immediately after the roundabout the riders come to Ardelay, a suburb of Les Herbiers, then reach a second roundabout after 1.58km. The flamme rouge is 400m ahead, then riders negotiate a third roundabout before coming to the final turn 610m after the flamme rouge. Another right-hander, this one turns almost 180 degrees around a mini-roundabout and is likely to be very slippery if wet; riders positing good times will be likely to take great care not to throw away their chances at this point when there are only 400m along the straight, slightly uphill Avenue de la Gare to the finish line at the Place de la Gare.

Results

1 Amber NEBEN Team USA 28'34"
2 Alison TETRICK STARNES Exergy Team Twenty 12 +1'08 "
3 Edwige PITEL ASPSA Grenoble +1'26"
4 Patricia SCHWAGER Team Switzerland +1'29"
5 Marijn DE VRIES AA Drink-Leontien.nl +1'41"
6 Cecilie Gotaas JOHNSEN Hitec Products +1'57"
7 Mélodie LESUEUR BigMat-Auber 93 +2'03"
8 Jeannie LONGO-CIPRELLI ASPSA Grenoble +2'15"
9 Ann-Sofie DUYCK Lotto-Belisol +2'16"
10 Lina-Kristin SCHINK GSD-Gestion +2'32"
11 Jutta STIENEN Team Switzerland +2'36"
12 Larissa DRYSDALE CS Groningue +2'58"
13 Martina RUZICKOVA SC Michela Fanini-Rox +3'05"
14 Mélanie BRAVARD Vélophile Naintré +3'23"
15 Aurore VERHOEVEN UV Angérienne +3:45
16 Coralie DEMAY Comité du Morbihan +4'03"
17 Johanna SMITH TF Languedoc-Roussillon +4'27"
18 Sandra LEVENEZ UC Carhaix +4'30"
19 Morgane CHARLES CSM Epinay-sur-Seine +5'00"
20 Julie AUGIZEAU La Roche-sur-Yon VC +5'03"
21 Danièle PAROT TF Région Centre +5'33"
22 Muriel RIDEAU La Roche-sur-Yon VC +5'47"
23 Marie TONDEREAU TF Région Centre +6'15"
24 Carole VALLEE VC Lionnais +6'30"
25 Marion SICOT TF Région Centre +6'44"