Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) retained her Vuelta España Feminina title with a final show of force on the 'queen' stage to the summit of the Alto de Cotobello, where an attack in the final kilometre carried her to victory ahead of Marlen Reusser (Movistar) and Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime), who also finished in that order on GC. Dropped when Vollering made that winning attack, Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) was fourth on the day and overall.
Vollering’s success came after a concerted effort by Van der Breggen to ride everyone off her wheel almost from the foot of the 10km long Cotobello. “Anna was trying to drop us all by going hard and accelerating from time to time. I knew that I had a little something left so I waited for the most difficult section coming into the finish to go for the victory,” said Vollering.
