Setmana Ciclista Valenciana Stage 1

Despite a crash on the final descent before which she went solo, European champion Annemiek van Vleuten wins the first stage by over two minutes.

Setmana Ciclista Valenciana Stage 1

Photo Gomez Sport

Despite a crash on the final descent before which she went solo, European champion Annemiek van Vleuten wins the first stage by over two minutes. Annemiek, with several bruises to her left side from her crash, arrived with 2’06” margin over García and 2’21” on the first chase group led home by Aalerud.

Annemiek van Vleuten: “We wanted to play it really open at this race, because I didn’t want to put myself under too much pressure. It was all about the team, not going with me to chase the leader’s jersey from day one – and it won’t be our priority to defend it. It’s more about putting on a great show and playing for stages with other girls. Obviously, the rest are not so close now so we’ve got some advantage to play with and Katrine has also shown great form with that third place, so I think we can play that game with other team-mates.

“Paula Patiño set up a super good attack – she actually ended up setting my own attack, because I wanted to work for Katrine, and I picked the pace for that, but I was a little bit too fast and she didn’t tell me to slow down. We need to work a little bit on the communications side of things, since our plan was to set Katrine up for her to go. In the end, I went, I continued with Mavi, and with 1km to go I went on my own.”

“Our goal here remains giving everyone an opportunity, that’s the objective. Even on the sprint stages – I’m really keen to do the leadout for our fast riders. I don’t want the stress to defend the jersey, the objective is to play the game for the team, defending here would need a lot of energy.”