It looked like history could be about to repeat on stage 1 of the Santos Women’s Tour Down Under on Saturday, when for the second year running a solo rider was off the front with a gap of over one minute with 20 kilometres to go.
Last year, Daniek Hengeveld caused a major surprise when she attacked solo inside of 50 kilometres to go and managed to hold off the peloton by 36 seconds to take the win, while Ally Wollaston took second in a chaotic field sprint.
This year, Alessia Virgilia (Uno-X Mobility) made a solo move with around 100 kilometres to go, with FDJ United-SUEZ taking on the responsibility of setting the tempo in the peloton for their sprinter Wollaston. Virgilia’s lead went up to over three minutes as Wollaston stayed in the pack, trying to keep calm and let her teammates do their job.
“As a sprinter, it’s kind of out of your hands. I was never going to go to the front and chase it down, so there’s actually no point in me stressing. So I tried not to think about it too much,” Wollaston told the assembled media after the race.
“But yeah, there are moments of nervousness where you hope that you will get a chance to sprint to the final and sprint for the win but I had full faith in my team today that they would finish it off.”
“I thought a lot about last year, then Ally sprinted to the second place, and Daniek Hengeveld had the amazing win, and we just didn’t want to have too big gaps, so we had to work really hard in the end. But Alessia was strong, so at some point, when the gap was 3:30, I had to push a bit harder, and then it was not so nice anymore,” Kraak said.
It did, however, justify the “full trust” Wollaston had that her team would reel in the solo rider.
“I think this morning we said we were fully committed to the plan of sprinting today,” Wollaston added. “So yeah, the girls had full belief in me. We were just fully committed to the sprint and the girls rode so amazingly today.
“They were all there for me in the final, and Amber rode the front basically the whole race so I really owe today to them, and I’m so thankful that I could finish it off for the girls.”
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