Shari Bossuyt (AG Insurance-Soudal) won stage 2 of the Vuelta Femenina in a reduced bunch sprint, crossing the line ahead of Franziska Koch and Évita Muzic (both FDJ United-Suez).
Stage 1 winner and overnight leader Noemi Rüegg (EF Education-Oatly) suffered a crash 13km from the finish and had to abandon the race, so Koch takes over the GC lead and the red jersey.
Katrine Aalerud (Uno-X Mobility) had attacked on a short climb just before Rüegg’s crash and eked out a 21-second gap, but when Juliette Berthet (FDJ United-Suez) accelerated on the climb towards the finish, the Norwegian was quickly reeled in.
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Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) tried to anticipate the sprint with an attack on the final kilometre but only ended up leading out the others.
“I was not expecting to win today because I was actually really far in the back on the climb. But I made up a lot of places on the downhill and just came with a lot of speed, and I think nobody was expecting that,” said Bossuyt.
“We had a plan for the sprint, but I needed to see what happened on the climb, whether there were a lot of attacks or not. Luckily, it was one hard pace uphill, so I could just hold on and then finish it off,” she finished.
How it unfolded
Although there were no classified climbs all day, the 109.8km stage from Lobios to San Cibrao das Viñas was an almost-continuous up-and-down with over 2000 altitude metres.
A first breakaway by Aniek van Alphen (Fenix-Premier Tech) and Katia Ragusa (Human Powered Health) on the uncategorised Alto do Vieiro did not last long, and the break of the day only formed when Carina Schrempf (Fenix-Premier Tech), Julie Van de Velde (AG Insurance-Soudal), Marieke Meert…
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