Commonwealth Games Road Race

Sundays womens Road Race day dawned fine and with little wind. Toni went into the race full of confidence with plenty of recent good form and good training sessions behind her. Given the role of team domestique meant that Toni had a clear race plan in mind and had never considered personal glory, that wasn't her job. This, I believe would be the kiwi teams undoing. Two of the team were given the role of getting in any early breaks and thus affording the stars of the team some rest back in the peleton. Toni followed the first break of the day, which go pulled back, she then counter attacked and went a little clear before Natalie Bates of Australia bridged and counter attacked her. Toni did well to get on Natalies wheel and that was to be the moveof the day. They were joined by Mandy Poitras (Canada), Emma Jones (England) and Noor Azian Binti Alias (Malaysia).
With a rider from each of the strong teams represented in the break, who would chase? The break wasnt really working well together, especially Natalie Bates who sat on the back and did absolutely no work. Toni was told to just roll through easy and that is what she did, but the break still put time into the peleton, getting out to over four minutes at times.
Toni was getting frustrated with Bates' laziness and tried to get away on her own, but her repeated attempts came to nothing. After one real solid attempt by Toni to break things up, Bates finally came to the front and went solo to ride away and clinch the Gold. Toni felt that the others in the break would join forces to chase, but they didn't or couldn't, and she was left in a quandary. Ride hard and drag the others along or wait for her ace sprinters back in the peleton and let them have a crack at the silver medal. The team chose the latter and in hindsight 5th (at worse) would have been a better result. Thats bike racing and Toni will no doubt get more opportunities to take some glory for herself.

Aaron