Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease A Bike) has soloed to victory and the overall lead in stage 2 of the Volta a Catalunya Femenina.
Already second on stage 1, Vos went one better on the 95.7 kilometre mountainous stage between La Seu d’Urgell and the first category ascent of La Molina, ousting previous leader Ally Woolaston (AG Insurance-Soudal) from the top spot on GC in the process.
On a day dominated by Visma-Lease A Bike, Vos teammate’ Riejanne Markus finished in second place, 51 seconds down, with Katrine Aalerud (Uno-X Mobility) in third.
Barring major surprises, Vos now looks certain to claim the overall victory on Sunday’s final, straightforward run into Barcelona.
"This is bizarre. I never expected to be able to compete for the win in a mountain stage,’ Vos said later in a team press release.
"The legs felt good and on the final climb I tried to keep up as long as possible. As the group got smaller and smaller, I still saw many teammates around me. That was a great feeling and motivated me tremendously."
"The plan was for Fem [Van Empel] and Femke [De Vries] to make the race hard from the start of the final climb. They executed that superbly.”
"After Femke's attack, I looked around and saw that we were all still there. At that moment I thought: now I'll give it a shot. There was a response to that at first, but later there was none. It's very special to win a stage in this way."
A group of 12 riders broke away before the race reached the first of the day’s two major mountain challenges, the Cat.1 Collada de Toses. But AG Insurance-Soudal firm control early on the stage ensured the race reached the foot of the final ascent to La Molina with the main peloton still intact.
On the notoriously irregular ascent to the Pyrenean ski station, containing several steep ramps and segments of downhill, Visma-Lease A Bike made it clear they were keen to make the running with early attacks by Fem Van Empel and Maud Oudeman.
However, Vos herself attacked in person seven kilometres from the line and never looked back, forging her way alone to the finish for victory number 254 of her career. The triple World Champion now has the leader’s jersey too, with a lead of 1:00 on teammate Markus and 1:08 on Aalerud.
"We will definitely defend the jersey," Vos said, "Tomorrow there are still some hills on the programme, but it's a totally different stage to today. I think a lot of teams still want some action, so it will definitely not be easy."
Results
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