Racers from around the world took on the first event in the Armed Forces Cycling Classic (AFCC) on a mostly flat, four-corner course. While Sunday’s Clarendon Cup race is often won in a breakaway, the Crystal Cup is more known for its blistering sprint finishes. The 2024 edition didn’t disappoint, ending in the fastest, most competitive sprints you are likely to see in North American racing.
The AFCC weekend is a family affair stacked full of fun events like the kids’ race.
The Women
The women’s field appeared to be at a stalemate for the first twenty-five minutes of their sixty-minute race. Teams like Virginia’s Blue Ridge 2024 and the Miami Blazers patrolled the front, nullifying attacks and backing their sprinters for a bunch finish. Near the halfway mark, though, that control loosened, and DNA-Blue Halo rider Rylee McMullen made the most powerful move of the day, taking a multi-lap solo flyer off the front. The effort would earn her the day’s “Most Heroic” jersey, and she would back it up with an impressive tenth in the sprint as well.
The Crystal Cup presentation.
With under ten laps to go, a bad single-rider crash stopped the race as she was tended to by EMS in the finishing straight. After a tense restart, teams like Legion of Los Angeles, Miami Blazers and 2024 dominated the front, vying for prime position for the sprint. Their hard work paid off in the final sprint as Kendall Ryan of Legion launched a searing, long-range acceleration and held off 2024’s Marlies Mejias and Samantha Schneider of the Miami Blazers. This makes it a record five Crystal Cup wins for Ryan, who says she is confident going into Sunday’s more technical Clarendon Cup race, where her team will try to follow a similar game plan to set up another sprint.
Results
1) Kendall Ryan, Legion of Los Angeles
2) Marlies Mejias, Virginia’s Blue Ridge 2024
3) Samantha Schneider, Miami Blazers
4) Chloe Patrick, Cynisca Appian
5) Arielle Verhaaren, Automatic Abus
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The Men
There was a similar dynamic in the men’s 80-minute race to what we saw earlier in the women’s field. In the first 30 minutes, there were many attempts to form a move off the front, but they were instantly smothered by teams like REIGN Storm-JLL, Legion and the Miami Blazers, who were all banking on a sprint finish. Project Echelon seemed like the only team strong enough to challenge those teams, sending both Cade Bickmore (Most Heroic winner) and Scott McGill up the road.
The Miami Blazers took the front with nearly twenty laps still to go and paced the peloton for nearly fifteen laps until the lead-out trains of REIGN Storm-JLL, the British Ribble team, and Echelon started to challenge. REIGN Storm proved to be head and shoulders above the rest in the end, controlling the final laps and still managing to put three riders in the top five, including race winner Alfredo Rodriguez. Echelon managed to score a third place finish with the McGill, and ButcherBox completed the podium with their sprinter Dusan Kabala, who repeated his second place in last year’s race. It is hard to imagine REIGN Storm losing control of the race tomorrow with so many riders at the top of the results sheet. However, history has shown that anything can happen during the 100-lap race in Clarendon.
Results
1) Alfredo Rodriguez, REIGN Storm-JLL
2) Dusan Kabala, ButcherBox Racing p/b Look
3) Scott McGill, Project Echelon
4) Jordan Parra, REIGN Storm-JLL
5) Bryan Gomez, REIGN Storm-JLL
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