Three days after winning Boise, Daniel Holloway takes UBC Grand Prix

It’s been a pretty good week for Daniel Holloway of AltoVelo-Seasucker. On July 11, Holloway won the Boise Twilight Criterium in Boise, Idaho, after holding off three members of Team UnitedHealthcare. On Tuesday night, Holloway won UBC Grand Prix, part of BC Superweek. Kris Dahl of Team Smartstop was second and Sam Bassetti of iRT Racing was third. In light of the UHC sweep of the podium in 2014, the 2015 results were conspicuously UHC-free.

Taking account of his win, Holloway quickly recognized the role of his team in securing victory at the UBC Grand Prix. “It’s not just me,” the 28-year-old rider from Morgan Hill, Calif. said. “I’ve got AltoVelo-SeaSucker taking care of me all race with equipment and everything else. It’s not just me who’s participating in the adventure, it’s my team that has set it up so I can be the face and today, it was super hard.” With more than half the field taken down by a crash that forced a restart not even 100 m from the start/finish line, it was certainly a hard race for many riders. Prevailing would require tight teamwork done right.

Working in harmony with teammate and eighth-place finisher Aldo Ino Illesis, Holloway’s win was an example. “He just said ‘patient, patient, patient,'” Holloway recalled, “and we sagged, then climbed about every other lap to save legs and then he just had the perfect line all the way around the course.” For much of the 30-lap, 48-km course, Illesis and Holloway were able to play off each other, allowing the latter to save energy for finale. “[Illesis] came into the final corner so fast, it scared me a little,” Holloway described. “I had a gap, Kris [Dahl] came underneath me and it ended up being pretty perfect because it forced him to do a really long sprint and I could take about six pedal strokes, relax and then accelerate just out of the roundabout.”

It’s an outcome that didn’t come as much of a surprise to Dahl himself, though, being the only Team Smartstop rider to start at this year’s UBC Grand Prix.

“With UHC and AltoVelo and all those guys, and me being by myself,” he said, “I wasn’t too sure of my chances in the sprint. I figured I might as well hit out and see what I could make happen.” Having placed in the top 10 several times at BC Superweek in the past, though, Dahl was pleased by how this year’s course at the UBC Grand Prix—a significantly different one than past years—helped him make the best of it. “This course is not too bad,” he said. “I’m more of a power rider, I’m a little heavier, so a climb is nice that’s just not too big and this is about perfect.”

Bassetti, who finished sixth at the Brenco Cirterium, was another rider who didn’t have to adjust much to the new course. “I like this kind of course,” he said. “Something that’s hard, and something that rewards fitness. So for me, this kind of sprint suits me [on a] good, hard course where the pure sprinters maybe aren’t quite as good normally.

“That’s the type of course that I like.”

Two-third of the podium a family affair at the women’s race

In the women’s race, Shelley Olds of Ale Cipollini rode to her fourth consecutive podium-worthy finish at BC Superweek, winning second. Olds, riding without any teammates, had her first top-three finish at Friday’s MK Delta Lands Criterium, followed with a second-place finish at the Brenco Criterium and a win at Sunday’s White Spot | Delta Road Race.

Sisters Samantha and Skylar Scheiner, meanwhile, both riders for IS Corp p/b Smart Choice MRI team, rounded out the podium in first and third place, respectively.

Throughout the race, numerous attacks and breakaways were attempted. Each time, though, the peloton took those attempts back. As Olds recalled, the brand new course for the UBC Grand Prix had a noted effect on that see-saw battle. “After the climb, it’s a bit of a headwind and a downhill,” she said, “so it’s a little harder in the break to ride, especially after the climb. Somebody attacks and then you have to close it, and then attack.

“It’s not easy to ride after the top of the climb, so I think it wasn’t ideal for the breakaway today.”

Samantha Schneider, the elder of the two, kept her head down through the course’s 25 laps and 40 km. It was in the final sprint to the finish that she turned up the heat, taking the win. “We didn’t know how it would feel in the sprint with this course,” Schneider said. “It was a really fun course. I was here last year at UBC and it’s a little bit different than last year, but very good crowd, very fun race and I’m really happy to be able to get the win today.”

Schneider made it count in the race’s last couple hundred metres, after staying on Olds’s tail through much of the race. With her sister, 16-year-old, seven-time U.S. national champion Skylar, following her lead, Schneider edged around Olds and powered to the line.

“Shelley is a world-class sprinter,” the winning Schneider said. “Shelley’s incredibly fast and deserves congrats on the second-place finish.”

For Olds herself, the UBC Grand Prix was similar to Saturday’s Brenco Criterium, with the 34-year-old Gilroy, Calif. rider taking primes wherever possible. Judging by her strength on the last lap, doing so may have drawn a little much from her reserves through the race. But she didn’t appear to mind.

“I think I just get excited and go for everything,” said Olds at the race’s conclusion. “For me, this is all training and it’s really good sprint training. Every sprint is different in the primes, so I’m just training my mind and my body how to sprint right now. That’s why I’m going for all the primes.”

The Global Relay Gastown is next in B.C. Superweek, happening Wednesday night.