Sarah Ulmer struck with the force of a hurricane in Wellington yesterday to become the first New Zealander to win a women's World Cup road race.
The slimly built Olympic track champion, who switched to the road 11 months ago, produced an astonishing solo ride to demolish a field containing
riders with numerous world and Olympic titles.
Among those left in her slipstream were the world's top three road riders in 2005 - Australia's Oenone Wood, Sweden's Susanne Ljungskog and Germany's Judith Arndt.
Ulmer clocked 3h 16m 45s for the 124km race on an inner-city circuit, bettering last year's winning time of Dutchwoman Suzanne de Goede on the same course by more than 21min.
Wood, the world No 1, was a distant runner-up, 4m 24s behind, and German Ina Teutenberg, who won last week's opening round of the series in Geelong, Australia, was third, a further 2sec back.
Ulmer turned on the afterburners early on the sixth of 20 laps, clocking a searing lap time of 9m 56s to clear away by almost 2min on the floundering peloton.
Ulmer said the New Zealand team had some options at the start of the race "but my option was taken earlier than expected". I think my team [Melissa Holt, Toni Bradshaw, Tammy Boyd, Susie Wood and Michelle Hyland] did a wicked job in the bunch to make sure no one else caught me, so it is a great day for the New Zealand team."
Ulmer, who also won the three-day Tour of New Zealand, which finished in Wellington last Friday, tried to downplay expectations for the Games.
"We've still got a lot of work to do, I have got a lot of work to do before then.
"A lot can happen in two weeks and I don't trust the bloody Australians. They can do a lot in two weeks as well."
- NZPA
