UAE Team ADQ’s Karlijn Swinkels won a wind-shortened edition of the Trofeo Binissalem-Andratx in Mallorca, prevailing in a three-rider uphill sprint atop the Port d’Andratx.
The Dutch rider beat Liane Lippert (Movistar) into second with Mie Bjørndal Ottestad (Uno-X Mobility) taking third in a slow-motion sprint at the top of the steep ascent. This meant that UAE Team ADQ has taken two of three wins in the Challenge Mallorca series after Maëva Squiban’s victory on Sunday.
How it unfolded
Monday’s Trofeo Binissalem-Andratx was the third and final part of the women’s Challenge Mallorca series, after wins for Maëva Squiban (UAE Team ADQ) and Cat Ferguson (Movistar) over the weekend.
The course was set to be 107km, but due to high winds it was cut down to a punchy 75km, still featuring three categorised climbs and finishing atop the 2.3km Port d’Andratx.
With the shorter length, the peloton was not keen to let a breakaway go on Monday afternoon, and the riders kept the pace high and the group compact for the first 40km and over the Coll den Claret, with no breaks getting any real gaps in the first half of the race.
It wasn’t until the final 35km of the shortened race that a group got away properly, with Anna Henderson (Lidl-Trek) spearheading an eight-rider group that formed over the rolling roads between categorised climbs. She was joined by Ferguson and Liane Lippert (Movistar), Karlijn Swinkels and Eleonora Gasparrini (UAE Team ADQ), Thalita De Jong (Human Powered Health), Mie Ottestad (Uno-X Mobility) and Debora Silvestri (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi).
With most of the strongest teams represented in the front, there was little impetus to chase behind, and the gap quickly grew, with the leaders starting the final 25km with a gap just shy of a minute. Behind, what remained of the peloton was shrinking quickly.
Over the Coll de sa Gramola, Movistar…
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