THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOISE, Idaho — Winnipeg’s Clara Hughes finished third overall on the Exergy Tour on Monday after an 11th-place finish on the fourth and final stage of the road race.
Hughes finished in the peloton, 55 seconds back of Germany’s Claudia Hausler and American Evelyn Stevens.
That final-stage breakaway gave Stevens the Tour win and firmly cemented her claim to a berth on the U.S. Olympic team for the London Games.
Jasmin Glaesser of of Coquitlam, B.C., finished seventh overall, one minute 50 seconds off Stevens’ total time. Karol-Ann Canuel of Amos, Que., was 12th overall and Olympic hopeful Tara Whitten of Edmonton finished 16th.
Winnipeg’s Leah Kirchmann placed 23rd, Calgary’s Julie Beveridge was 24th, Victoria’s Gillian Carleton was 26th, Lex Albrecht of Laval, Que., finished 32nd and Leah Guloien of Port Moody, B.C., was 33rd.
Stevens, of Boulder, Colo., took second place in a sprint with Germany’s Claudia Haeusler after the 75.2-kilometre stage. But the 29-year-old Stevens finished far enough ahead of the pack to beat Amber Neben, of Lake Forest, Calif., for the overall title.
Stevens, Neben and Hughes all ride for Specialized-lululemon.
Stevens, a former Wall Street associate, takes home US$10,000 for the overall win. She bought her first racing bike in 2008 and then became a cycling phenomenon.
"It’s an honour to race here and it’s an honour to represent the United States, hopefully," Stevens said. "I’m a little bit later to the sport of cycling, so hopefully people can hear my story and realize it’s never too late or never too early."
The Exergy Tour wound its way through southwestern Idaho, making stops in the Snake River wine country, the mountains above the historic mining region surrounding Idaho City and concluding on the tree-lined streets just north of Boise’s downtown.
The race had been anticipated as a showdown between three U.S. women: Stevens, the 2011 U.S. time trial champ; Neben, the 2008 world champion; and 2008 Beijing Olympics gold medallist Kristin Armstrong, from Boise. But Armstrong crashed on the first day, suffering a broken collarbone.