Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) won stage 3 of the La Vuelta Femenina, sprinting to victory in Teruel, taking her 252nd road victory exactly 18 years after her first.
Vos launched her sprint 150 metres from the line and finished several bike lengths ahead of Charlotte Kool (Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL) and Olivia Baril (Movistar Team).
Mireia Benito (AG Insurance-Soudal) had attacked right from the start and spent 120km solo at the front of the race before being caught 7.5km from the finish.
“Yesterday we already worked hard, then we had some bad luck in the final, and today we went all-in again. All the girls worked really hard for this, and then it’s really nice to finish it off. I’m very happy with this win,” Vos said.
“The wet roads in the beginning were very slippery, there were a lot of crashes, and you just hope that everybody gets through it okay. In the final, I didn’t really see what happened, we were just trying to get in a good position to the finish line. They always say crashes are part of the race, but it’s never nice when it happens,” said Vos about the crashes that happened throughout the day, with the biggest one in the final three kilometres.
The red jersey remains on the shoulders of Blanka Vas (SD Worx-Protime), who took two bonus seconds in the intermediate sprint and is now one second ahead of Vos.
How it unfolded
Having been injured in crashes the previous day, Anna Henderson (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Clara Emond (EF Education-Cannondale) did not start stage 3. Marta Cavalli (FDJ-SUEZ) and Sabrina Stultiens (VolkerWessels) also did not take the start, and Emma Norsgaard (Movistar Team) abandoned the race early on.
By that point, Benito was already ahead on her solo ride, having attacked soon after the start and slowly but surely building an advantage of up to 5:39 minutes. The 27-year-old took maximum points on the day’s only classified climb in Fuente de Rubielos, but Karlijn Swinkels (UAE Team ADQ) attacked from the peloton to crest the climb in second place and defend her polka-dot jersey.
45km from the finish, Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM) and Kim Cadzow (EF Education-Cannondale) crashed on a descent but could continue the race. 19km later, Teniel Campbell (Liv-AlUla-Jayco), Daniek Hengeveld (Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL), and Natalie Grinczer (Roland) went down. While Campbell and Hengeveld quickly got back up, Grinczer required medical attention and was eventually transported to hospital, abandoning the race.
By this point, Visma-Lease a Bike and Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL had taken charge in the peloton and reduced the gap to Benito to 2:10 minutes. When she was only 33 seconds ahead with 14km to go, it was clear that Benito would be caught, but she won a well-deserved combativity prize.
With 2.7km to go, Thalita de Jong (Lotto Dstny Ladies) crashed hard after what looked like a touch of wheels, with Silke Smulders (Liv-AlUla-Jayco), Évita Muzic (FDJ-SUEZ), Silvia Zanardi (Human Powered Health), Clara Koppenburg (EF Education-Cannondale) and several other riders also going down and many more being held up by the crash.
Only 34 riders had been ahead of the crash, and Movistar Team led this reduced group onto the penultimate kilometre before Riejanne Markus (Visma-Lease a Bike) took over just before the flamme rouge.
Amber Kraak (FDJ-SUEZ) tried a last-minute attack but couldn’t get a gap, only leading out the sprinters until Liane Lippert (Movistar Team) took over 300 metres from the line with Baril and Vos on her wheel.
On the other side of the road, Kool was in the wind far too early, and when Vos kicked on the last 150 metres, she quickly opened a big gap, allowing her to sit up before the line and celebrate.
In addition to the stage win, Vos will wear the green points jersey on stage 4 as Vas, who leads the points classification, already wears the red jersey.
Results
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