La Ruta de los Conquistadores
The Leaders are Unchallenged
17.11.2007
RamÃrez showed why he was expected to win this third stage. The climbing to the Irazú Volcano is his type of climbing, so none of the other racers could followed his amazing pace up to the highest point of the entire event at 3010 meters above sea level. Ramirez completed the 66.7 kilometers of today’s course in a time of 3:34:25, while Deiber Esquivel (IBP Pensiones) and Paolo Montoya (Mancosta-Lee Cougan) were 8:57 and 10:29 behind him respectively.
According to “Lico, he wasn’t supposed to attack until the long 17Km climb to San Gerardo, nevertheless, he felt like he could manage it, so he struck out earlier and left the other riders behind at the very beginning and decided to use an early and explosive strike.
“The original idea was to hold the pace and see what they were planning to do, but I realized that they weren’t trying anything when I thought it should happen. I felt like they were weak and I was strong enough to go�, Federico said.
Ramirez easily got to each one of the check-points over the Irazú climb. With no competition pushing him to speed up, the “pizza boy� took the grueling downhill from the Turrialba Volcano with care and focused on finishing the stage in one piece. “It gave me more confidence and my coach recommended me to take it relaxed because of the danger of this segment�, Lico commented.
In the women’s competition, Sue Haywood’s strategy was almost the same, with the only difference that she made the descent from the volcano pretty fast due to her excellent downhill technical skills. The Trek-Volkswagen racer’s time was 4:42:45, while Louise Kobin (Sho-Air) and Alejandra Carvajal (BCR-Pizza Hut) finished 2nd and 3rd respectively.
In the General Classification both leaders keep a comfortable advantage over the followers. Lico’s total time of 12:37:00 is 27:08 better than Paolo Montoya’s. Louise Kobin is 43:21 behind Sue Haywood’s mark.
La Ruta de los Conquistadores will end tomorrow with the classic 120 Km trip from Turrialba to the Atlantic Zone’s flatlands. Weather forecasts predict a rainy and humid Saturday, therefore, the organization will launch an expedition tonight to evaluate the course’s situation. A few changes might be made to the railway section in order to avoid a couple of damaged train-bridges where the infrastructure is possibly unstable due to the force of the rivers.
If these variations take place, the distance of the race will be almost the same but some gravel and train-tracks segments will be replaced by faster paved roads.
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