Tour of Scandinavia: Marianne Vos sprints to victory on stage 1

Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma) sprinted to victory in Helsingør to win the opening stage of the Tour of Scandinavia.

Megan Jastrab (Team DSM) surfed the wheels to secure second whilst Shari Bossuyt (Canyon-SRAM) took third.

Vos is back on the top step of the podium after winning the sprint but being disqualified from the Vårgårda road race on Sunday.

The opening stage of the six-day tour finished in a bunch sprint after a day that saw no defined breakaway but almost non-stop attacks and accelerations in the peloton.

Vos will wear the yellow leader’s jersey on stage 2, and the team’s efforts also secured the mountains jersey for Amber Kraak.

“It was very fast,” Vos said at the finish. “There were different trains, it was quite nervous in actually all of the race, but of course in the final everyone wants to get there. We tried to stay together with the team, and then the perfect last lead out by Linda Riedmann. She led me to the train of Trek and from there I launched my sprint. It was fast so really difficult to get more speed but I’m very happy I could keep it.

“Of course, it’s nice to do this as a team. Amber [Kraak] has done a perfect job and in several other races she’s always there for the team so it’s nice to also work a little bit for her.”

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How it happened

The first stage of the newly-expanded Tour of Scandinavia rolled out of Copenhagen on Tuesday afternoon, leaving the capital to head to Helsingør in the northeast of Denmark. Starting on the coastal road, the race then headed inland along a rolling but fairly flat profile before culminating in three straightforward finishing laps around Helsingør.

The first 50km of racing was relatively uneventful, with two short-lived attacks from Kirstie van Haaften (Parkhotel Valkenburg) and Lauretta Hanson (Trek-Segafredo) the only moves to note as the peloton remained compact on the route north.

Nina Kessler (BikeExchange-Jayco) won the first of three intermediate sprints, whilst Tour de France Femmes polka dot jersey wearer Femke Gerritse (Parkhotel Valkenburg) took the first Queen of the Mountains point from the Jumbo-Visma-controlled bunch. Alison Jackson (Liv Racing Xstra) took maximum points at the second intermediate sprint.

Going into the last 75km of racing, the attacks started again as FDJ-Suez-Futuroscope, Parkhotel Valkenburg and Jumbo-Visma started to up the pace. Parkhotel’s Lieke Nooijen briefly held a gap, but there was no settling down in the peloton behind. Danish champion Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ-Suez-Futuroscope) took her chance to show herself on home roads whilst her team and Trek-Segafredo led the aggression in the bunch. The result of this injection of pace was a strung-out peloton with riders from smaller teams struggling to hold on.

Despite the flat finish, there wasn’t a huge wealth of sprinters on the start line Tuesday and so many teams were motivated to make the race hard rather than roll in for a bunch sprint. With more than 50km still to race, the pace in the bunch was relentless with riders continually trying to push moves off the front, though nothing really stuck.

Entering the finishing circuit, it was all together again with Canyon-SRAM and BikeExchange-Jayco taking their turns on the front in support of their sprinters. On the one categorized climb on the circuit, the Jumbo-Visma duo of Vos and Kraak attacked in search of QoM points. Kraak took maximum, beating Gerritse into third and securing the jersey at the end of the stage.

After a brief regrouping after the climb, SD Worx initiated a flurry of attacks started by Vollering and Fisher-Black to test the legs of the GC riders, but once again there was no sustained move with 25km remaining.

The sprint teams tried to control things going into the last lap, but Vollering again took advantage of the climb to attack the move, stretching out the peloton and forcing the likes of Vos and Uttrup Ludwig to close the gap. With 10km to go the race regrouped, and despite the GC riders’ efforts, the stage looked set to culminate in a bunch finish in Helsingør.

It was Trek-Segafredo that was the most organized team going into the final 3km, burning through most of its riders in support of Amalie Dideriksen, but the former Danish champion only had Chloe Hosking to follow going into the final kilometer.

Closing in on the line, Hosking put in a big effort in support of her sprint but in the final 400m it was Vos, who was delivered by teammate Linda Riedmann, that came around the Trek duo and held off her fellow sprinters to take victory on stage 1.

Jastrab was somewhat isolated in the final but followed the right wheels to sprint to second, whilst Canyon-SRAM’s efforts delivered Shari Bossuyt to third. Despite Trek’s long lead-out, Dideriksen settled for sixth.

Vos now leads the overall by four seconds ahead of Jastrab, with the other GC favorites finishing safely in the bunch. Her teammate Kraak will wear the mountains jersey on stage 2, whilst Jastrab’s second place earns her the best young rider jersey. Jackson secured enough points in the intermediate sprints to wear the green sprinter’s jersey in Sweden on Wednesday.

Tomorrow’s second stage heads to Sweden with another rolling profile taking in 154km of racing between Orust and Strömstad.