A familiar face of the Tour de White Rock found success once again at the annual event.
Germany’s Florenz Knauer sprinted ahead to claim the Choices Markets Criterium Saturday evening.
Knauer has won the 60-lap, 60-kilometre race three times since 2014, and depending how he finishes in today’s Westminster Savings Road Race, puts him in a good position to extend his streak of finishing in the top two in the Tour de White Rock omnium for overall points to eight years.
According to a news release, the 30-year-old German nearly missed the podium after misjudging how many laps were left in the race when it was two to go.
“Because Samuel Bassetti was on the hill on the back of the course, I was on his wheel. He brought me up perfectly and I jumped on the last corner and then figured out that I actually had one more lap to go. I just put everything I had left in the tank and somehow managed to win it again.”
Ulises Castillo Soto, 20, finished second and Cole Davis, 20, finished third.
WOMEN’S RACE
First-year pro cyclist Marie Soleil Blais is making her mark on the sport with a first-place finish at the Choices Markets Criterium.
“It was so hard, the fact that I was alone with no teammates and there were a few teams with a lot of riders. I knew the second that I sat, they would go away so I had to just jump on everything and never let anything go, even if that meant not winning – It was the only way to get a top result for the omnium,” said Blais in a news release, who was third at the Global Relay Gastown Grand Prix last year. “I felt like everybody was getting tired, so I kept the pace high and there was an opportunity to go for the crowd prime – I went and then there was a gap. I thought it was now or never, so I went full gas on the last lap.”
Vancouver’s Haley Gill finished second while Georgie Danford finished third.
Danford is usually a track racer, but she came to BC to race and visit family she has in Canada, according to a news release.
“I just wanted to have some fun today, it’s the last crit so I wanted to try more stuff like bridging over,” Danford said in the release.
BC Superweek concludes on Sunday with the Westminster Savings Road Race as part of the Tour de White Rock presented by Landmark Premiere Properties. The men race at 10 am while the women race at 10:05 pm.
Saturday’s race was followed by the TD Concerts For The Pier series, with Kalimba performing at Five Corners.
Eagle Eyes with The Fab Fourever is to play at Totem Park on July 18.
