Published September 4, 2021 12:08PM
Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) won an impressive second stage in a row at the Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta. The European Champion spent over 35 km solo to win stage 2 by nearly three minutes. Liane Lippert (Team DSM) crossed the line two minutes 48 seconds later to take second immediately followed by Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM).
Van Vleuten moved into the overall lead, one minute 34 seconds ahead of Marlen Reusser who started the day in the red jersey.
The hilly stage broke the stage apart early, with a breakaway containing Van Vleuten going clear 60 km into the stage. After Van Vleuten decided to try for a solo move her former breakaway companions were joined by a strong group of chasers.
The chase of eight riders were all working well together and making up time on Van Vleuten, albeit slowly, until the final 15 km when Van Vleuten’s gap actually started to grow. Her victory was all but inevitable when the chase started to attack each other and riders started to skip turns in the final 10 km.
After Van Vleuten had finished the chase fractured, leaving Lippert, Niewiadoms, Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo), and Floortje Mackaij (Team DSM) to fight for second and third.