Cat Ferguson (Movistar) has continued an exceptional start to the season with another victory, this time on stage 2 at the Setmana Ciclista Volta Femenina de la Comunitat Valenciana.
The 19-year-old capitalised on the element of surprise when she launched an attack just ahead of the final chicane inside 600 metres to go and held off the reduced peloton sprinting all the way to the finish line in Vila-Real.
How it unfolded
The peloton raced 115km in and around Vila-Real for the second day of racing at the Setmana Ciclista Volta Femenina de la Comunitat Valenciana.
The biggest climbs of the day were held back-to-back over the Alt de Marianet (8.1km at 3.4%), Alt de Eslida (8.2km at 3.9%) and Alt de Aín (5.8km at 3.9%), followed by gently rolling terrain down toward the finish line back in Vila-Real.
Lieke Nooijen (Visma-Lease a Bike) launched a solo move before the first climb, the Alt de Marianet and built up just over a minute on the approach to the second ascent of the day, Al de Eslida, but at four minutes down, not a threat to stage 1 winner and overall race leader Vollering.
She took all three mountain primes for a total of 16 points to take the lead in that classification.
After the summit of the Alt de Aín, Nooijen was joined by Talia Appleton (Liv-AlUla-Jayco) and Sigrid Ytterhus Haugset (Uno-X Mobility) and had a 45-second lead on the Vollering group.
The reinforcements helped immensely, bringing the trio’s advantage to 1:30 over the…
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