Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta: Annemiek van Vleuten conquers climbs to take stage 2 victory

Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar Team) took victory on the Queen stage and the lead of the Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta after going solo in the final 30km of the climb-filled day.

Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) and Lianne Lippert (Team DSM) completed the podium, finishing over two minutes down on the winner.

Van Vleuten attacked early on the penultimate category 1 climb, initially taking Demi Vollering (SD Worx), Longo Borghini, Mavi García (UAE Team ADQ) and Lippert with her, but soon rode her rivals off her wheel to ride solo almost 30km to the finish.

Sarah Roy (Canyon-SRAM) and Lucinda Brand (Trek-Segafredo) were away together for most of the stage, but were caught at the bottom of the decisive climb.

Van Vleuten now leads the overall classification by a minute and 55 seconds over Longo Borghini.

How it happened:

Though only the second day of racing, stage 2 of the Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta was the hardest of the five-day tour. Taking in five categorized climbs squeezed into just 106km of racing, the day was set to shake up — if not totally decide — the general classification as the climbers tested their legs in the Cantabrian hills.

The road started gradually rising right from the flag drop, and when the race hit the base of the Alto Fuente Las Varas after 13km, the attacks began. Olympic champion Anna Kiesenhofer (Soltec Team) was briefly on the attack, but the first real move of the day was an attack from Marta Lach (Ceratizit-WNT), Maaike Coljé (Massi Tactic), Sophie Wright (UAE Team ADQ), Sarah Roy (Canyon-SRAM) and Lucinda Brand (Trek-Segafredo). The peloton were not letting them go easily, with Niamh Fisher-Black (SD Worx) trying to chase them down, but the group held a small lead towards the top of the climb.

Cresting the top of the climb, Brand and Roy attacked their breakaway companions, going clear into the descent. The pair pulled away into and on the next climb — the short but steep Cruz de Usaño — while their former breakaway companions were caught by the bunch. Brand and Roy continued to lead over the top of the climb, and stretched out their lead on the 25km flat section between the second and third climbs, building an advantage of two minutes on the peloton. Brand had won the Queen of the Mountains sprints on the first two climbs, enough to earn her the polka dot jersey.

By the base of the third climb to Campo Loyal, the gap had increased to over three minutes as the peloton relaxed behind. With 45km remaining, a crash in the bunch saw red jersey Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) hit the ground and tangled with teammate Shirin van Anrooij, but was soon back on her bike. Despite the crash, the climb saw the gap to the leaders shrink to a minute and 20 seconds, with Longo Borghini soon rejoining the peloton with her teammates.

After completing the climb and with 35km remaining, the peloton had shrunk and some attacks began to string the group out further as SD Worx tried to make the race hard. Approaching the base of the second ascent to Alto Fuente Las Varas, Movistar were pacing on the front of the peloton in support of Annemiek van Vleuten and bringing the break’s lead down to below 50 seconds on the flat. On the base of the climb, Brand and Roy were caught by the bunch, which had broken apart significantly and contained less than 30 riders.

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As soon as the catch was made, Van Vleuten made her move to set a high pace on the early slopes, taking with her Demi Vollering (SD Worx), Longo Borghini, Mavi García (UAE Team ADQ) and Liane Lippert (Team DSM). The five-strong elite selection went clear of the rest of the bunch, with Van Vleuten continuing to lead the way with still 4km to go to the top. Lippert was the first to lose the wheels, and García soon also dropped away. With 3km left to climb, Longo Borghini could no longer hold on, and with only one rider left to dispatch, Van Vleuten put in a second big effort to ride away from Vollering.

There were still 2.8km of the Fuente Las Varas climb, a final smaller hill and 28km of road to go, but Van Vleuten looked to be riding away from the race, quickly gaining 30 seconds on Vollering. Behind, Lippert was making some progress, coming back past García to join red jersey Longo Borghini. The chasing group contained GC hopefuls Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ-SUEZ-Futuroscope) and Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), but they were almost two minutes back with still 20km to race.

With 17km to go, Vollering rejoined Longo Borghini and Lippert, with the red jersey now a minute and 13 behind Van Vleuten as she extended her lead on the final Campo La Cruz climb. On the descent, Longo Borghini put her descending skills to use to pull away from Vollering and Lippert and limit her losses on GC.