Grand finale of 2018 BC Superweek at the Tour de White Rock road race
American Brendan Rhim and Canadian Alison Jackson win on a hot summer's day to wrap up BC Superweek
BC Superweek concluded on Sunday with an exciting road race at the Tour de White Rock. American Brendan Rhim (Holowesko-Citadel) and Canadian Alison Jackson (Tibco-SVB) claimed the wins on a scorching hot summer day of racing.
Rhim’s win came after a 50-km solo breakaway in the 130-km road race. It was the teams plan all along to set-up the 22-year-old. “This is a pretty hard course, I’ve never done it before, so I was a little unsure I could stay away. Especially the short laps on the finishing circuit, I knew they were going to be hard with the short little hill,” Rhim said. “I measured my effort, everybody in the group looked pretty tired when I went up the road, so I was just calculating and it was good.”
German Christopher Hatz also escaped the peloton riding solo but fell short of catching Rhim. Florenz Knauer claimed his seventh podium of BC Superweek finishing third.
Jackson launched a long sprint with 400 m to go to claim her first win at the Tour of White Rock road race after having won the crit the day before. The 29-year-old from Vermillion, Alta. has finished in the top-five four times in the past five years.
“My fitness is usually really good, and so when we get to the end it’s really hard. I’m willing to suffer in the heat and the climbs,” she said. “A lot of times people think, ‘Oh, she’s a sprinter and that’s about it’ but you can’t drop me on these climbs. I love a really hard race and White Rock has always been that for me.”
Second on the day was Rally’s Gillian Ellsay from Courtenau, B.C. with 2014 winner Megan Rathwell of Rise Racing in third. “I kind of saw Alison going up the left, it was kind of chaotic, so I just followed her and figured it was a good wheel,” said Rathwell. “And it worked out!”
Tibco-SVB uterly dominated BC Superweek winning seven of the nie races between Jackson and Kendall Ryan who didn’t race the Tour of White Rock.
Jackson had only good things to say about BC Superweek and it’s influence in her career. “I think it’s such a good series of races for locals to get a chance to race with the pros and I’m particularly really excited about someone like Elizabeth Gin, a junior rider hanging in there and making it today with the second group, that’s a great ride for a young girl,” Jackson said. “You can only have that experience when you have a great race series like this, so I think it’s really good for local racing and developing Canadian athletes.”
