Boels Dolmans remains the team to beat in the early season as world champion Lizzie Armitstead scored the squad’s fourth road win of the year at UCI Women’s WorldTour opener Strade Bianche. The Briton beat out Kasia Niewiadoma (Rabo-Liv) and Emma Johansson (Wiggle-High5) to the top step of the podium in Siena’s Piazza del Campo on Saturday. The trio broke away from a reduced peloton following the fifth of seven gravel sectors.
“It wasn’t really the plan,” said Armitstead, who insisted in a pre-race conference on Friday that while the race was a team target, it was not a personal objective. “My legs are better than I expected. Training has been going good but not really this good. I’m excited that my legs are already like this because I think there’s still room to improve.”
Armitstead is now batting two-for-two in the rainbow jersey, and, as she pointed out to Cyclingnews post-race, she’s won her last four races – GP Plouay, which earned her the World Cup overall, and the World Championships to close out the 2015 season, she can now count wins at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Strade Bianche to open the season.
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Her victory in Siena came with the honour of donning the first Women’s WorldTour jersey, making her the last women to wear the (now defunct) World Cup series jersey, and the first women to wear the Women’s WorldTour jersey.
“We’ve already started the season really well,” Armitstead said. “The Hour Record was fantastic. Already, three victories in Europe and one in Qatar; it’s difficult to improve on that. The hardest thing is to be on the top all the time. It doesn’t come easy. We make it look easy but it’s not. Our biggest challenge is staying on the top.”
Nikki Harris, Armitstead’s teammate, launched an attack in the third gravel sector that would serve to split the peloton and set the stage for the action still to come. The British cyclocross champion is racing her first road season with Boels-Dolmans and has clearly carried her form from the mud to the road (and gravel).
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