Team captains Amber Rais (left) and Meredith Miller lead a deep Team TIBCO squad into the Cascade Classic, beginning Tuesday

Los Altos, California – Team TIBCO will bring one of the strongest, most balanced stage race rosters into this week’s Cascade Classic, which begins tomorrow.

“We have a lot of options with our roster,” said Meredith Miller, one of the team’s captains.

The squad includes three of last year’s top 10 finishers, including Canadian Julie Beveridge, who finished 3rd overall and won the best young rider competition. Amber Rais finished 8th overall last year, while Miller slotted in at 10th overall.

Add in Kiwi Joanne Kiesanowski, who has been one of the team’s most consistently strong riders this season, and it gives the Team TIBCO numerous options in the battle for the overall title.

“Looking at the overall, we have a lot of different cards to play this year,” Miller said. “Julie is probably our best climber, and Jo is climbing and sprinting really well. But above all, we want to make the race as hard as possible each day.”

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Philadelphia, PA –Joanne Kiesanowski of Team TIBCO benefited from a strong team performance to earn 2nd place in the prestigious Liberty Classic in Philadelphia Sunday.

The New Zealander was perfectly positioned to join a 12-rider group that slipped off the front the final time up the infamous Manayunk Wall and stayed away until the finish at the end of 90 kilometers of racing.

“During the race, Emma (Rickards), Kat (Carroll) and Meredith (Miller) did a great job of covering moves that went on the flatter portions of the race,” Kiesanowski said. “I had responsibility going up the wall, so I was always in the front selection each time up.

“Coming into the last time up the Wall, Columbia-Highroad had it lined up on the front going into the last corner before the climb,” the New Zealander said. “At the base of the climb, Trixi Worrack (Equipe Nürnberger) put in an attack, but she didn’t really get too far because she had five Columbia riders to get around.”

However, the increase in pace caused the separation that created the group of 12 riders who contested the finish.

“We really didn’t like the composition of the break because Columbia had four riders up there, including Ina (Teutenberg),” Kiesanowski explained.

“I wasn’t sure we had the horsepower to chase down the break,” team directeur sportif Jeff Corbett added. “Emma, Kat and Meredith had done a lot of work earlier chasing down moves. But if we couldn’t bring them back, I wanted to at least keep the pressure on and not let the gap balloon so the Columbia riders couldn’t play any games coming into the finish, like sending Mara (Abbott) off solo to take the win, and them still having Ina to sprint for 2nd place.”

The efforts paid off, with Columbia unable to set up a lead-out for Teutenberg, leaving their sprinter to freelance the finish. But her three teammates kept the pace sufficiently high that only Amber Neben (Equipe Nürnberger ) tried an attack, but that was quickly neutralized.

“Columbia just kept the pace up, and Ina didn’t have to cover anything,” Kiesanowski said.

Coming around Logan Circle and into the finishing straight, Kiesanowski went with Alison Powers as the Team Type 1 rider opened up her sprint on the left side. But when she saw Teutenberg powering up the right side, “I jumped over to her wheel and I was able to hold it,” she said. “For a minute I thought maybe I could come around her, but she just kept going like a good sprinter does.”

Kiesanowski settled for second, but she wasn’t too disappointed. “You always want to win,” she said, “but this is a big race and it’s great to finish on the podium. I was really happy with my sprint. It’s nice when I go and the legs respond. It’s just hard to beat Ina most days.”

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Los Altos, California – Team TIBCO brings its strongest roster ever into the first NRC stage race of the season this weekend, the Redlands Classic, beginning Thursday, March 26.

“We’re definitely focused on the overall,” said Team TIBCO directeur sportif Jeff Corbett. “It’s a wide open race. It’s not a pure GC rider’s race. Redlands isn’t for pure climbers or time trial specialists. Just about any one of our riders could be in contention for the overall. Someone like Lauren (Tamayo) or Kat (Carroll) could get in the right move on Beaumont (Friday) and get in contention.”

The team will still look to several riders in particular in pursuit of the overall title, including Carroll, who finished 3rd in the 2008 edition, and rising Canadian star Julie Beveridge, who posted a 9th overall last year.

The team also can look to Kiwi Joanne Kiesanowski, who finished 8th in the 2008 world championship road race, as well as veteran Aussie Emma Rickards, who returns to racing in the U.S. after four years with top-level teams in Europe and a 2nd place finish in the 2008 Geelong World Cup. Powerhouse Amber Rais gives the team yet another weapon for the overall and stage wins. For the downtown Redlands criterium, Tamayo is the top candidate for a sprint finish after posting strong results at the Tour of Qatar and the Amgen Tour of California Women’s Criterium.

But Corbett adds that “We’re coming out of a really good training camp and everyone is going really well. I’ve been impressed. We’ll see how things go in the opening prologue. That often decides the hierarchy.”

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After losing the leader’s jersey in yesterday’s crit to sprinter ace Tina Pic (Colavita/Sutter Home), Joanne Kiesanowski (Tibco) won the sprint to the top of the final climb and retook the lead at the Mt Hood Cycling Classic. On her heels at the finish line were Jeannie Longo , riding for the composite team River City Racing and Felicia Gomez (Aaron’s).

“Just coming up the last time up the climb, there were lots of attacks, I was pretty much following making sure that I was always in the front selection, just riding top 5 all the way up the climb, just making sure that I was always make the front selection. Longo did an amazingly long leadout, she was extremely strong, I just managed to come around her.” said Kiesanowski.

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It was a party in Portland and the sprinters came to play at the Mt Tabor Criterium – a crit in name only – stage 1 at the Mt Hood Cycling Classic.

Under beautiful skies, warm temperatures, beautiful setting and an appreciative crowd, Tina Pic (Colavita/Sutter-Home) showed why she can wear the Stars & Stripes as the US Criterium Champion outsprinting GC leader Joanne Kiesanowski (Tibco) at the line. With the time bonuses on the line, Pic picked up the leaders jersey, the points jersey and the QOM jersey to add to her collection. Julie Beverige (Aaron’s) came in third and kept her Best Young Rider jersey for another day.

Tina Pic (Colavita/Sutter Home) wins sprint at Mt Tabor; photo c. Lyne Lamoureux

“Jeannie [Longo] was driving it up there, and then we came down, it was kind of a fight down there, a lot of Cheerwine, they were definitely trying to do a leadout. And I was dodging in and my teammate Tiffany was in there, and Jo [Kiesanowski] went at 150 but she stayed to the right which is smart and I had to back up and come around the long way. It was a really good move on her part, she’s a smart racer. I went with 100 or 50 to go.” said Pic about the final lap.

“I had to try to something, I thought I could see if I could get someone to come with me.” said a Kiesanowski.

Pic was concerned about the course when she saw for the first time during warm up, extremely winding course with nearly 135 feet of elevation for every 1.3 mile lap, and 90 degrees turn at the top of the climb. But she loved it.

“I was scared of that course when I saw it. First I thought this climb is pretty brutal, it’s funny when we got in there, it wasn’t so bad because this part you could actually… you had a fair draft coming up, it leveled a bit, really it was just this little bit and in the pack it wasn’t as bad as alone. It was actually quite fun, it was a really cool course. It was a surprise.”

Today’s course was all about positioning, being at the front at the top of the hill. And of course teammates.

“It was good, I don’t like crits, but it lots of fun, it had a good hill on it, that was great. The end was all Meredith [Miller] and Alison[Testroete] because I’m not such a great sprinter but Meredith drilled up the hill and she lead me to move up into position, it was kind of mess because Felicia [Gomez] went down, Alison came around me at the bottom and was like ‘get on my wheel’, and I was like ‘okay’.” said Beveridge about the finish.

“My team did so much work today, as usual, we’re really cohesive this year, I sat, I didn’t do much today.” said Pic.

“We were trying to make the field a little smaller, we weren’t quite sure what to expect on this course and we just thought… at the beginning try to keep it fast, whittle the field down a bit, just for safety purposes but it turned out that Jeannie [Longo] was at the front quite a bit so we thought okay we’ll let her do it. And after that, just trying to keep the race hard, keep it fast. We had a bigger group come to the finish line than we were expecting so might not have been as hard.” said Meredith Miller (Aaron’s) about her effort at setting a high pace during the race.

The time bonuses on the line brought a small change to GC with Pic at the leader, followed by Kiesanowski and Beveridge. And then the whole circus moved down to Hood River for the Cooper Spur Circuit race, the next stage where the climbers will come out and play. It’s only fair that they get their turn.

The scenic 6th annual Mt Hood Cycling Classic returned bigger than ever as one of only three UCI women’s point races in the United States making it a very important stopping point for the women hoping to earn a selection for the Olympics.

A pair of Kiwi track riders, from two different teams, took over the podium at the Mt Hood Cylcing Classic. Points race specialist, Joanne Kiesanowski, on her second race with her new team Tibco, won the prologue in downtown Portland with a time of 3:08 average a speed of 32. m/hr (52. k/hr) over 1.7 mile out and back course. Pursuit specialist Alison Shanks (Jazz Apple) came in second with less than a second behind the winner.

Rounding off the podium is Dotsie Bausch (Colavita/Sutter Home), also not a stranger to the track, as she has just returned from the Pan American Championships with a gold medal in the Women’s 3000 meter Individual Pursuit.

Joanne Kiesanowski (Tibco), prologue winner, photo c. Lyne Lamoureux

“I rode the course a lot of times before, I just went around and around it. I just knew that I had to have a good turn around, it was important not to lose too much time around there, just went hard.” said Kiesanowsk.

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