Sofia Gomez Villafañe (Specialized Off-road) sprinted away from a small group of contenders to win the weather-shortened Life Time Big Sugar Classic elite women’s race in Bentonville, Arkansas, in a time of 2:36:23.
Crossing the line six seconds behind the defending champion was US gravel winner Lauren Stephens (Aegis Cycling Foundation) for second, and Stella Hobbs (MAAP-Wahoo) was third, a further six seconds back.
With a ‘hazardous weather outlook’ issued by the National Weather Service (NWS), race organisers decided just an hour and a half before the elite starts to shorten the course from 100 to 50 miles.
“I thrive in chaos,” Villafañe said at the finish for the Life Time broadcast. “The uncertainty of racing 100 [miles], or are you racing 50? Although I was praying we were going to do the 50, I thought it would just deliver some really exciting racing. And it was chaos for 50 miles, attacks going left and right, and it came down to the wire.
Just six days ago Villafañe earned the victory in the 62-mile Little Sugar MTB race for a Bentonville sweep. Villafañe simply had to start the sixth and final event of the Life Time Grand Prix series to secure her third overall title. The 31-year-old rider made it to the podium of every event in the series so far this year, winning Sea Otter Classic Gravel and Little Sugar before her victory at Big Sugar.
“I surprised myself today,” Stephens, who is not part of the Grand Prix this year, told Cyclingnews. “With the change to the 50 [miles], I was ready for a long race and having just to make that mind switch to the short race. I definitely enjoy the shorter races, but we don’t do them a lot, so I didn’t feel ready.
“In the end, it was great. We had a group of four off of the second-to-last climb, that LDC [Lauren De Crescenzo] initiated. And, a little bit of cat and mouse along the mountain bike trails there, where it’s flat, and we’re like, ‘what do we do? What do we do?’ And so I just tried to keep it rolling.
“And then when we hit that last little kicker, I was like,…
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