Joe Martin Stage Race: Emma Langley wins Devil’s Den TT

This article originally appeared on Velo News

The pro women managed to escape the rain for Saturday's 3-mile Devil’s Den time trial at the Joe Martin Stage Race.

EF Education-Tibco-SVB’s Emma Langley rode away with the win in 10:47.25, as well as the pink GC jersey. Langley was the only rider to finish under 11 minutes during the third
day of racing, gaining a 27-second gap on GC over her rivals heading into the final day on Sunday.

"This is my third time doing the time trial. I feel every year it gets harder, but at least I know what to expect," Langley said. "I had a really thorough pacing plan that I put together with my coach and my performance director on the team, so I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I was really glad that at the beginning it went according to plan. The end was just push as hard as possible.

"I just gave all I could, going for GC was the goal today. Tomorrow is going to be just as hard, if not harder to defend it. I really wanted to take the jersey today and have a few seconds on the other girls. We'll see what the results say, but it's going to take everything we have to defend it tomorrow. We're really excited for that."

The Arkansas Tourism Devil's Den TT challenged the legs with many crossing the finish gasping for breath. Austin Killips finished second in 11:17.39 for Team Wolfpack Racing, moving her up to second on GC, and Langley's teammate, Clara Honsinger was third in 11:26.16. Heidi Franz (InstaFund Pro Cycling) crossed in 5th place, 48 seconds down from Langley, sliding down to third overall.

Killips is the first trans woman athlete to compete on the domestic pro cycling circuit, making her debut at the Tour of the Gila earlier this month. She finished second on the Gila Monster, and third overall at the Tour of the Gila a couple of weeks ago. Following her effort in the time trial Saturday, she is now second on GC ahead of Franz. Team Wolfpack Racing has had plenty of success in crits, but Sunday will be only the second pro crit Killips has raced in.

"Pacing these kind of efforts is a thing you hone and refine, building into your race craft and your skill set," Killips said. "I am looking forward to learning from my teammates, working with their expertise and seeing their abilities to probably control and race a different way having not raced a lot of pro crits with a pro team before. It's a non-traditional crit, but it's a bike race that goes around a circuit many, many times, so we all know the drill."

The women will be first to start Sunday, at 3 p.m. CDT following the amateur races scheduled earlier in the day. There were no other changes in the other classifications heading into stage 4.

Stage 3 full results here.

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