Nicole Cooke 23, the recent winner of the Grande Boucle - the women's Tour de France, and current World one, secured the World Cup in Rotterdam today. A mark of her dominance is that the success is assured with one round, which features double points, still remaining and after suffering a horrible crash in the 2nd round in New Zealand which stopped her from completing that event.
Cooke came into the event with a significant lead, basically just needing to finish ahead of Judith Arndt (Ger) and Susanne Lungskog (Swe) to secure the title. Despite the fairly flat nature of the circuit, strong crosswinds caused a split in the 150 strong group after just 30km. A group of 17 was formed with Cooke accompanied by 3 other Univega Team-mates. T-mobile had the eventual winner Ina Teutenberg and other riders in this group but were without 2nd placed Arndt. After a furious chase a 12 strong group, including Arndt, made it up to the lead group.
Cooke and Arndt in Canada (Photo courtesy of 'PhotoSport International')
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This group then stayed together to the finish. After softening attacks by her team-mates, Cooke made a move for lone victory with 4 km to go. In a defiant chase, T-mobile, spearheaded by Arndt, brought the rest of the group up to Cooke at just over 1km from the finish. Arndt ceded the win to Cooke by helping lead out Teutenberg for the win on the day.
Nicole Cooke said "I am absolutely thrilled to win the World Cup. It was a fantastic performance by the whole team. It would have been nice to win today but the overall was far more important. I shall enjoy next week's final round in Germany, the pressure is now off me but we have the Team Win to secure ahead of T Mobile."
For further details on Nicole's racing see www.nicolecooke.com
Rotterdam Tour 138.6 km World Cup Round number 11 of 12 (with total World Cup Points)
- Ina Teutenberg T Mobile(Ger) 3 hours 6min 211
- Tanja Hennes Team BuitenPort (Ger) 54
- Kirsten Wild AA Drinks(Ned) 35 75
- Nicole Cooke - Raleigh Univega Lifeforce (GBR) 389
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