Interesting route here in Canada. It looks pretty hilly with a circuit of 7 hilly laps in the middle part. But with a flat or even slightly downhill finish it`s still flat rated.
Who will take the Canadian NC in 2013?
Only 17 riders at the start and the clear favourite is the Canadian RBC Alstom team with 10 of those. Only Boeing is having some options as they have 3 riders.
The full startlist is:
Houle, Anderson, Boivin, Boily, Meier, Roth, Rollin, Dionne, Salas, Pancake (RBC Alstom)
Sparling, Routley, Britton (Boeing)
Matteau (Magna)
Veilleux (WWE)
Hesjedal (Metinvest)
Duchesne (Gazelle)
Smart move here by Meier (RBC Alstom). Early in the race he attacks and puts pressure on those, who are already isolated.
No surprise that Boeing has to do something. Their leader seems to be Sparling today as the other two riders are working at the front.
Half of the race is done and Meier still leads with a bit more than 4min. As best Canadian TT rider, he also is a huge favourite for the ITT. Can he reach the double this year?
Sparling (Boeing) has waited long enough and attacks with 40km to go. It`s probably the last chance to catch Meier now.
Roth (RBC Alstom) though immediately follows to keep that advantage of a 2nd rider.
Also Magna`s Matteau did attack and so those 3 have created a 2'45 gap to the rest, who more or less slowed down now. This is of course a disaster for one of the most experienced Canadians in Hesjeday (Metinvest) or Veilleux (WWE) And Duchesne (Gazelle), who should have followed that move.
The gap to Meier though is still at 4min with 34km to go. So it might be very close.
5km and Meier is in their sight! Still quite a gap though and the rest is downhill.
But actually no danger for Christian Meier. Dominantly and with a huge solo ride he wins the 2013 Canadian National Road Championship.
Congrats Meier, Congrats RBC Alstom.
The trio behind did work pretty well until the last 5km. Then the tacticals started and so they had no chance to come in 1st. But it was a close sprint for 2nd. Sparling in the end the fastest ahead of Roth and Matteau. 1'25 behind Meier though.
The peloton almost is 10min behind and so didn`t play a role at all.
Meier already won the Road Race and is the big favourite today. But let`s see if someone else can beat him.
His team mate Rollin is one of his biggest opponent.
Also Britton (Boeing), Roth (RBC) and Hesjedal (Metinvest) must be named here as they are decent time trialists.
Matteau (Magna) was just out of the podium in the RR and wants to improve a bit today.
At the intermediate it looked quite close. Rollin, Matteu, Boily, Hesjedal, Roth, Britton in that order but all within 21s!
But then Meier came and put the new best time being 26s faster than his team mate.
He of course knows all previous times. And he`s going fast until the end easily takes the ITT as well being 53s ahead of Rollin and Matteau (+1'07).
So we have a Canadian double champion in Christian Meier this year.
