During four days of competition in and around Somerville, N.J., Team Type 1 scored three victories – including two by Development team rider Adam Driscoll – while earning six podium finishes.
The impressive results were particularly satisfying for sanofi-aventis, the team’s primary sponsor. Its U.S. headquarters are in nearby Bridgewater, N.J., and its long-acting insulin, Lantus, was branded as the title of the event that has been part of the American cycling scene for 66 years.
Ilesic led Team Type 1 to the finish line of the Kugler-Anderson Memorial, the 50-mile (80 km) men’s race that was won by Lucas Sebastian Haedo (Colavita-Sutter Home presented by Cooking Light). Haedo scored his second straight victory at Somerville ahead of Jake Keough (Kelly Benefit Strategies) and a hard-charging Ilesic.
“With 300 meters to go, Colavita still had three guys up in front,” Ilesic said. “I started to sprint, but Haedo was just too fast today.
“I’m happy for the team and our sponsor, sanofi-aventis. They made a great event. We’re still a new team with new riders. We need to get a little more experience, but I’m confident for the upcoming races that we’ll get it to come together.”
Team Type 1 set up its sprint train by putting five riders at the head of the race on the penultimate lap, bringing loud cheers from the partisan crowd of sanofi-aventis employees and their families who were lining the 1.35-mile rectangular course in Downtown Somerville.
“We knew it was probably going to come down to a bunch sprint in the end,” Team Type 1 Director Sportif Vassili Davidenko said. “We may have gone a little too early in the sprint, but overall our guys did a great job. There were some really fast guys here and some very good teams.”
In addition to Ilesic’s third place finish – his second straight podium placing at a National Racing Calendar event – Team Type 1’s Ken Hanson finished sixth.
In the women’s 20-mile (32 km) Kugler Open, Kori Seehafer (not pictured) led Team Type 1 with a seventh-place finish as Tina Pic (Colavita-Sutter Home presented by Cooking Light) scored her fourth victory (and second straight) in the event that is popularly referred to as the “Kentucky Derby of Cycling.”
Driscoll’s wins came in Friday night’s Category III-IV Manville Madness criterium, the opening race of the Lantus Tour of Somerville series, and Sunday’s Bound Brook criterium. Matt Wilson earned the men’s professional team’s 18th win of the year the same afternoon by soloing away from a pair of breakaway companions late in the 40-mile (64 km) race.
Materials used for this post, courtesy of Team Type 1
Photo: Marco Quezada Photography
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