Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig resisted numerous attacks on the final stage to secure her first ever WorldTour stage race victory at the Tour of Scandinavia on Sunday.
The FDJ-SUEZ-Futuroscope rider began the final day with a slender 17 second lead on DSM’s Liane Lippert who, in turn was determined to depose her rival.
On the final of three-and-a-half laps of the finish town Lippert attacked on a short, sharp cobbled climb, instantly getting a gap Uttrup Ludwig was forced to close herself. With Lippert caught Uttrup Ludwig secured the overall, with the German in second place and Alex Manly (BikeExchange-Jayco) third on GC.
The stage was won by Marianne Vos, her fourth of a week of gnarly, classics style stages which suited her perfectly. It was not easy though.
As well as the GC battle raging on the final lap, so was the fight for the stage victory. Vos’s Jumbo-Visma team mate Anouska Koster attacked the bunch on the final circuit, quickly catching a solo attacker, and forging on alone.
The former Dutch champion entered the final 500m with a diminishing lead, BikeExchange-Jayco and Trek-Segafredo desperately trying to bring her back. But Vos was on their wheel, and seeing Koster would be caught, launchd her own sprint, taking the win ahead of Canyon-SRAM’s Shari Bossuyt and Barbara Guarischi (Movistar).
While Vos might have won four of the six stages, and the two long open stages brought negative racing, the race was excellent, with jeopardy surrounding the overall winner into the final two kilometres.
Uttrup Ludwig’s overall victory was built on her stage five mountain top win at Norefjell, and this year has seen the Danish champion mature into a real contender. Though illness meant she started slowly, her stage win at the Tour de France was huge, and only her second WorldTour success.
Though she only finished seventh overall in France, she performed consistently well, proving her form with Saturday’s stage win and the overall victory, her first stage race win since 2017, and her first WorldTour multi day success.
Her FDJ-SUEZ-Futuroscope team did a consummate job controlling the final stage, allowing the stage six breakaway to build their advantage then controlling the deficit to defend the Danish rider’s 17 second overall lead.
How it happened
For the final stage of its first edition, the Tour of Scandinavia went back to its Ladies Tour of Norway routes, for a stage finish in Halden, the host of town of what was the organising club, and the current…