Charlotte Kool (Team DSM) won the final stage 3 of the RideLondon Classique and the race overall. On The Mall, Kool was the fastest in the sprint, beating Chloé Dygert and Maike van der Duin (both Canyon-SRAM).
The final stage was dominated by a three-rider breakaway who went off the front halfway through the eight-lap race but were reeled in on the final lap.
With the time bonifications for second place on the stage, Dygert moved past Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo) into second place overall, 11 seconds behind Kool.
“I am really happy. This one is really for the team. How we did it again today, how strong the girls were, how they rode today, that was really impressive. This morning I felt really, really bad, so I am happy that I could still take this stage and the GC,” said Kool about returning to the top step of the podium after crashing in the final of stage 2.
“It was to our benefit that there were a lot of GC riders who wanted to keep the GC close. The bonus seconds were not a problem for us, neither were the girls in front, it was a good situation for us,” Kool recounted the race.
How it unfolded
Covering 91.2km on eight laps through the centre of London, the final stage was always going to come down to a sprint. That didn’t deter Jessica Finney (AWOL O’Shea), Caroline Baur (Israel-Premier Tech Roland), or Francesca Morgans-Slader (AWOL O’Shea) from attacking, but none of their moves lasted for long.
The intermediate sprint after three laps of racing was won by Dygert in front of Eleonora Gasparrini (UAE Team ADQ) and Pfeiffer Georgi (Team DSM), Gasparrini extending her lead in the U23 classification to two seconds over Georgi.
Just inside four laps to go, Sofie van Rooijen (Parkhotel Valkenburg) attacked from the peloton, and on the following kilometres, Victoire Berteau (Cofidis) and Grace Lister (DAS-Handsling) bridged to the Dutchwoman. Together, they built a gap of 1:20 minutes with 30km to go.
With two laps to go, they also took the points and bonus seconds in the intermediate sprint, but their advantage had dropped to under a minute as Team DSM, Trek-Segafredo, and Canyon-SRAM had fully committed to the chase. The breakaway was brought back at the start of the final lap.
The sprinters’ teams positioned their trains on the final lap, and after a last-ditch attack by Sarah Roy (Canyon-SRAM) was reeled in at the flamme rouge, everything was set up for a mass sprint.
Kool was in perfect position on the wheel of Georgi, and Gasparrini and Karolina Kumięga took the front for UAE Team ADQ through the final turn, not realising that their sprinter Chiara Consonni had been boxed in.
Kumięga went all-out on the front with Georgi and Kool on her wheel, and when the Pole slowed down, Georgi launched her lead-out just as Dygert and Van der Duin came up on her left and Noemi Rüegg and Anna Henderson (Team Jumbo-Visma) on her right.
Dygert briefly took the lead before Kool started her sprint 150 metres from the line, and Kool won the stage by about half a bike length.
In addition to the overall victory, Kool also won the points jersey, while Hanna Johansson (Torelli) won the QOM jersey after her stage 1 breakaway exploits. Gasparrini won the U23 classification.
Results
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