Stage win for Vos as Vas keeps La Roja
April 30 th 2024 - 17:50 [GMT + 2]
Women’s cycling legend Marianne Vos (Visma | Lease a Bike) won the 3rd stage of La Vuelta Femenina 24 by Carrefour.es with a powerful sprint that saw her triumph by several bike lengths over Charlotte Kool (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) and Olivia Baril (Movistar Team). The Dutch rider claimed in Teruel her third stage win in this event, following last year’s victories in La Roda and Guadalajara, and honored the effort of her teammates to bring back courageous lone breakaway rider Mireia Benito (AG Insurance-Soudal). The Spanish cyclist spent nearly 120 kilometres solo at the front and was duly awarded the most aggressive rider white jersey. As for the Red one, Blanka Vas (SD Worx-Protime) kept it by one second on Vos, thanks to 2” bonus seconds collected at the stage’s intermediate sprint. A flat stage between Molina de Aragón and Zaragoza awaits the riders this Wednesday.
140 riders took the start in the 3rd stage of La Vuelta Femenina 24 by Carrefour.es, which covered 130,2 kilometres between Llucena and Teruel, at 13:43. There were four DNSs: Anna Henderson (Visma | Lease a Bike), Marta Cavalli (FDJ-SUEZ), Clara Emond (EF Education-Cannondale) and Sabrina Stultiens (VolkerWessels). Emma Norsgaard (Movistar Team) also withdrew from the race a few kilometers into the stage. After a few moves from different riders, Mireia Benito (AG Insurance-Soudal) went clear. She had a one-minute gap on the pack 12 kilometers into the race.
Impressive effort by Benito
Despite several attempts to join her breakaway, the Catalan rider established herself solo at the front and built a sizable advantage clocked at 4’12” at the foot of the Alto Fuente de Rubielos (cat 3, km 69,1). She crested the day’s only categorized climb 4’35” ahead of a peloton led by Karlijn Swinkels (UAE Team ADQ), who was 2nd at the top to keep her polka dot jersey as QOM classification leader for one more day. The lack of an organized chase meant that Benito grew her gap up to the 5’39” she enjoyed at kilometer 79. It was on the approach to Mora de Rubielos (IS, km 87), where the AG Insurance-Soudal rider kept 4’12” worth of daylight on the bunch, that Grace Brown (FDJ-SUEZ) unsuccessfully tried to set off in pursuit of the lone leader. Red jersey wearer Blanka Vas (SD Worx-Protime) claimed 2” bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint that would prove precious at the finish line.
A mass sprint to settle the affairs
The peloton hesitated for a while as only SD Worx-Protime and EF Education-Cannondale took some pulls to keep Benito under shooting distance. The bunch was 3’00” in arrears of the head of the race when Visma | Lease a Bike started driving it with 30 kilometers left to race. An unfortunate crash with 27 to go saw Natalie Grinczer (Roland) quit the race on an ambulance. Visma’s work quickly paid off, as Benito’s gap decreased rapidly and she was brought back 7,5 kilometers from the finish. By that time, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL had already begun contributing on behalf of its sprinter Charlotte Kool. A crash just inside the final three kilometers saw 40 riders fall out of contention. Movistar Team led out the sprint with Liane Lippert, yet Marianne Vos (Visma | Lease a Bike) took the best off her contenders to pay back her teammates’ effort.
