Joelle Numainville had an excellent stage today finishing runner-up for the second day in a row, this time behind a powerful solo move from 2011 Giro Donne winner, Mara Abbott. Her form continues to climb following a stellar and very long 2012 season where Numainville needed to perform from beginning to end to first, qualify for the Olympics, then compete well there and finally hold onto that form at the World Championships at the end of the season. Great to see Joelle is coming back to her best. Brianna Walle who is in her first full season of pro racing, fought hard all week to move into a final podium position today. Unfortunately her legs gave out just a bit too soon and Brie couldn’t hold onto her spot. But given the earlier race winning performance and podiums she had at San Dimas and another podium this week on Stage 2, Brianna will surely improve over the coming weeks as we look ahead to Joe Martin and the Tour of the Gila.

The Optum p/b KBS men faced a very difficult challenge today in defending yellow with a reduced squad of 5 riders. Their hope was to consider the other team’s agendas and hopefully have those teams play off of each other and reduce their workload on one of North America’s toughest circuits – the Sunset Loop. For the most part it did indeed work out and the GC contenders were still all together in the closing laps, however Kenda/5 Hour Energy’s Francisco Mancebo put in one attack too many for race leader Chad Haga. Tom Zirbel, Scott Zwizanski and Haga put in a desperate chase down from the top of the course onto the finishing circuits but Mancebo had gained enough time to jump over Haga. However Chad and Zirbel both remained on the final podium standing 2nd and 3rd overall. Given the difficult challenge with the smaller squad, the boys can be extremely proud to have finished 1st and 2nd on the opening stage and landing 2 spots on the final podium. From what we know of Chad Haga, this will only fuel his desire to grab another win in the near future.

The remaining men raced probably their most difficult day in Europe today at the UCI 1.1 ranked Klasika Primavera de Amorebieta in Spain. Racing amongst the word’s best including Alberto Contador, the guys rode a very strong race just missing the front final group over the last climb of the day. Marsh Cooper and Jesse Anthony both came close to surviving to the line, while Sebastian Salas suffered a late race puncture that took him out of contention.

The race reports from Rachel Heal and Eric Wohlberg below. And visit optumprocycling.com for full galleries of the Redlands Classic. The final stage gallery and images from Europe will also be up soon.