Olympic road champion Anna van der Breggen soloed to victory in the Amstel Gold Race on Sunday off the back of a perfectly-timed attack, with her teammate Lizzie Deignan winning a five-up sprint for second place to make it a Boels-Dolmans one-two.
Boels-Dolmans had indicated it planned to target the three Ardennes races, but a slower start to the team’s spring compared to a dominant 2016 classics season has invited endless questions over the last month. The one-two punch at the sixth round of the UCI Women’s WorldTour served as as an emphatic response to the naysayers in Valkenburg.
The fourth edition of the Amstel Gold Race is the first edition following a 14-year hiatus. Amstel, along with Liège-Bastogne-Liège, are new additions to the women’s calendar in 2017 and along with Flèche Wallonne provide the women’s peloton with its first proper Ardennes Week. The biggest names of the women’s peloton eagerly embraced the opportunity to race over Holland’s most iconic hills. By the time the live broadcast began, with 20 kilometres left to race, the bunch had been decimated.
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Van der Breggen’s race winning-move was made when she marked an attack by Annemiek van Vleuten (Orica-Scott) on the third time up the Bemelerberg. With UCI Women’s WorldTour leader Coryn Rivera (Team Sunweb) following, the pair bridged across to Deignan, Kasia Niewiadoma (WM3 Cycling) and Elisa Longo Borghini (Wiggle-High5). With eight kilometres left, including the fourth and final time up the Cauberg, the six riders had a 13-second advantage over approximately 16 chasers.
Van der Breggen waited less than a kilometre to launch her attack. She immediately pocketed 10 seconds over her five former break-mates, and hit the base of the Cauberg with a 30-second lead.
Although Deignan and Niewiadoma proved two seconds quicker up the final climb, Van der Breggen’s gap was big enough to fend off any challenges on the flat, fast run-in to the finish. Relieved and elated, Van der Breggen reached the finish line alone.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Race Results http://ift.tt/2p7RzaT
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