May 08, 2016 (Chongming Island) – Canada’s Leah Kirchmann has taken third place in the overall rankings of the UCI Women’s World tour race, the Tour of Chongming Island. After two-second place finishes, she finished 10th in the final stage. The final Stage 3 was also the shortest, at 99 km – 9 laps of an 11 km circuit. None of the breakaway attempts were successful on this rainy day, as most of the teams were focused on the mass sprint.

Ting Ying Huang, of the Chinese Taipei national team, won the final stage, as she had won the first stage. Sara Mustonen-Lichan was our top finisher as 8th with Leah Kirchmann 10th. A large crash near the finish caused massive troubles for all.

Leah had been in second place overall coming in to the stage, 4 seconds behind Chloe Hosking. Huang’s win moved her to second, dropping Leah to third.

Coach Dirk Reuling said that the plan “…was to try to get seconds back in the bonification sprints with good lead outs, and to go for the stage win. That would have made the good work of the last days complete.”

“Unfortunately it did not go like that. In the first sprint, we took 1 second, but Hosking took 2 seconds. That made a gap of 5 seconds. The final sprint was hectic and Leah lost Sara’s wheel and didn’t get back into a good position to sprint.”

Leah said, “I’m disappointed with how things played out on the final stage, as the final result does not reflect how well we rode together as a team this whole week. I lost our lead-out train in the final, and then narrowly avoided crashing during the chaotic sprint in the rain. We had a lot of opportunities to work on our lead out this week, which will serve us well in the upcoming races.”

Results

1. Ting Ying Huang (Tpe) Taiwan    2:26:06
2. Roxane Fournier (Fra) Poitou-Charentes.Futuroscope.86
3. Ilona Hoeksma (Ned) Parkhotel Valkenburg Continental Team

10. Leah Kirchmann (Can) Team LIV-Plantur

Final GC
1. Chloe Hosking (Aus) Wiggle High5
2. Ting Ying Huang (Tpe) Taipei
3. Leah Kirchmann (Can) Team LIV-Plantur