Chris Demarchi's dream of winning a major stage race this year came true as he took the overall win along with a SWEEP of all 3 jerseys, the polka dot, green sprinters and the YELLOW! Congratulations to Chris. All of your dedication and hard work has paid off! Also, Congrats to Team Amgen-Giant, for they displayed exemplary team work to take Chris to the line every time. Read Chris' race report below:
San Dimas Stage Race, where only the best come out to play and you can expect fearless competition at all levels.
Day one: The hill climb
The day starts with me finding out the Thurlow is under the weather and Gus was a DNF for the start due to his crash in Murrieta. I was thinking to myself, I am totally prepared to work my butt off for these guys this weekend, but now I am going to have to go after it and put in a special ride to put the Amgen / Giant team name somewhere in the top 10 leader board.
I did my fastest ride ever 15:06. 1 minute down on Tony from rock that has beat my twice this year in hilly road races. This put me in 5th place going into the road race.
Day two: The Road Race
This day started with Thurlow laying out a game plan to attack, attack, attack the yellow jersey and where him down, then have me sit in and grab as much time as I could. My TEAMMATES ARE AWESOME!!! One after another they attacked and attacked hard. There goes Thurlow, now Kirk, now Gil, now Anthony, now Thurlow again and so on. Bruce was protecting his spot and I was watching The yellow jersey dismantle before my eyes. From Lap one I hit everyone’s legs up the big climb of the day. I was well rested because my TEAMMATES ARE AWESOME, so I would punch it up and over the hill to hurt the group. Before I knew it, I was grabbing the KOM points. Then Thurlow goes again and makes the Yellow chase. As we are coming up on the time bonus, Thurlow clearly could of got the 10 seconds, but NO. He starts coasting because he saw me barreling down to grab the precious 10 seconds. The man trusted me enough to get those points. (Thank you). This went on till 2 π laps to go. At that point, I looked at the yellow jersey and he was clearly suffering. It was time to GO!! With another huge effort we had a minute gap on the yellow and a pretty organized group. That was all she wrote. Gil was with me and Gave me every bit he had left to drive the break. I made a deal with Paolanetti to start helping to drive the break and I would give him the win. (again Thurlow’s idea before the race)(that man has some serious skill to pre read a race) Jaime got the win and I rolled in right behind him 3 minutes ahead of the yellow. The plan worked perfect because of MY AWESOME TEAMMATES.
I was now in yellow, green, and pokidots. Totally amazing!!
Day Three: The Crit
Today was the day for me to rely on my team again. They kept everything under control and kept the tempo just right. I got second in the first time bonus, but Jaime got first, this put him down 7 seconds to me. This is where I did not panic, but told myself that my team has done everything they can to put me in the winner’s circle, Now it was my time to make it all right. I was probably talking out load to myself at this point, telling myself that I will win this Criterium, that I am going to be in my 53/11 when I take the final turn, and not touch my breaks. The only thing I was going to do was lay down the wattage until I hit that Line. I got the win and within seconds had a slew of emotion run through my body. (every one of you know what I was feeling) my dream, my goal came true!!
As a team we got the win
We got the leaders jersey
We go the sprinters Jersey
We got the pokidots Jersey
We got the total respect of the field.
Awesome job to all of my Teammates and A big thank you to all my teammates who stayed to support and congratulate us when we crossed the line. My team Rocks!!!!!!
Chris DeMarchi
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