Race history repeated itself on stage 3 of the Vuelta Ciclista Andalucia Women on Friday, as for a second time in 48 hours, Liv AlUla Jayco scooped all three podium placings, with Ella Wyllie claiming the win.
Some 45 kilometres from the line, Silke Smulders, race leader Mavi García and Wyllie, the same Liv AIUIa Jayco trio that captured the top three spots on stage 1, broke away with last year’s winner Katrine Aalerud (Uno-X Mobility).
After quickly shedding Aalerud, the trio continued to hold a minute’s advantage all the way to the coastal town of Velez Malaga.
With Smulders winning stage 1 on Wednesday and Garcia taking the lead and stage 2 on Thursday, it was almost a foregone conclusion that Wyllie would be first across the line of the trio of Liv AIUIa Jayco riders on stage 3.
“The girls were on fire today. It takes a team. We might have crossed the finish line first, second and third, but there are five of us here, and everyone is just fully committed to the team and plan. I think it shows really great signs for the future, and we'll just build off this race. We still have one final day tomorrow, but it feels good to be leading the overall classification, and hopefully, we can wrap it up tomorrow. It’s been an amazing few days," Wyllie said.
How it unfolded
Almost as soon as the start flag dropped at Torre del Mar, the Vuelta Ciclista Andalucia Women peloton was challenged by the cat. 2 Alto Mirador de Axarquía and two riders quickly moved ahead: Krista Doebel-Hickok (Human Powered Health) and Francesca Pelligrini (UAE Development Team), with a third, Cristina Tonetti (Laboral Kutxa-Fundacion Euskadi) close behind.
Tonetti then took over with Pelligrini on the front in the hilly terrain that dominated the first two-thirds of the stage, but with 50 kilometres of a short but relentlessly punchy stage left to go, the entire peloton regrouped.
On the second classified climb that immediately followed, the Alto del Zurron (cat. 3), the ultra-powerful break of the day briefly emerged. Not only race leader García but also last year’s winner Katrine Aalerud (Uno-X Mobility) and García’s teammates, Silke Smulders and Ella Wyllie, running second and third overall on GC, respectively, took off.
Behind them, an eight-rider group tried to form a counterattack, but instead, the top three names from Liv AIUIa Jayco dropped Aalerud once again and forged clear for what was set to be a re-run of stage 1.
The trio established a lead of 57 seconds on the pack and maintained it without problems on the long descent down from the Sierra de Almijara mountain range and back to the coast. A 15-rider chase group emerged as they hit the flat, but it seemed there was precious little they could do to reduce a gap now standing at over a minute.
All that was left to be decided was who would take the win, and after Smulders and Garcíá’s respective triumphs, it felt only like poetic justice that their Australian teammate would get the third win out of three for Liv AIUIa Jayco. Garcíá crossed the line behind, and Smulders then completed the podium, with all three further stretching their overall lead by around a minute on the rest of the field.
Overall, with just one day remaining, a hilly 100.2 kilometre run from Alhaurin de la Torre to Pizarra, it remains to be seen if anything can escape Liv AIUIa Jayco’s rock-solid domination of the race. But on current evidence, it seems very unlikely.
Results
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