Talansky douses Cannondale’s WorldTour drought

ONTARIO, California (VN) — With a visceral scream and two thumps to a green-clad chest the winless streak was over. Andrew Talansky won atop Mt. Baldy, took his team’s first WorldTour victory in over two years, doused their drought in California bubbly. Finally. Ask Cannondale-Drapac if the drought was bothersome and they’ll say no. “It wasn’t ever something I thought or focused on,” Talansky said. Ask them to explain it, why it took so darn long to end, and they’ll redirect to their wins outside the WorldTour, and to close calls within it. They point to luck, or a lack thereof, and to decisions made that place a focus on bigger, harder to win races. “I made a conscious effort in our recruiting to get guys who can maybe win big, not guys who are guaranteed to win small,” said team manager Jonathan Vaughters. “The result of that is that sometimes you might be forced to be extremely patient.” Patient they were, for a while. But do the sort of athletes who reach the top of their sport really not care about a two-year losing streak? Do they not care that they became known as the winless team? Talanksy’s bellow as he crossed the line suggests otherwise. Mt. Baldy unfolded largely as expected. LottoNL-Jumbo hit the front early and hard for their twin threats, George Bennett and Robert Gesink, whittling the field down to a dozen and change. Slowly the final domestiques fell off, one by one, in a methodical paring determined by size. Ben King went “as hard as I could for as long as I could,” until about…

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