Vuelta a Burgos Féminas stage 4: Vollering wins atop Lagunas de Neila as Labous claims overall victory

Demi Vollering (SD Worx) climbed to victory on stage 4 of the Vuelta a Burgos Féminas, whilst Juliette Labous (Team DSM) finished second to win the overall.

After catching the day’s breakaway at the base of the climb, a group of 20 favourites contested the Lagunas de Neila finale, but Vollering and Labous emerged as the best climbers on the day.

Leader at the start of the stage, Maví García (UAE Team ADQ) faded on the final climb to lose out on the overall victory.

Also read:  Vuelta a Burgos Féminas stage 3: Mavi García solos to victory in Ojo Guareña

“Horrible, it was super hard,” Vollering said of the final climb. “There was wind in front, so that made it pretty hard. I was really happy with my teammate Niamh [Fisher-Black], she did a really good job and then I needed to do it myself. I lost a lot of time yesterday, so I knew I needed to make a big gap to go for the GC, but in the end the gap was too small. That was a bit sad, but I was happy that I could win here because that was a really hard battle.”

“It was really hard to get rid of Juliette. In the end it was not enough but I was happy with the win.”

“It feels great,” Labous said at the finish. “I was waiting for a victory for a long time and finally it pays off. I felt really great yesterday and the girls really had confidence in me today and they rode so good. In the end it was really hard, Demi [Vollering] was really strong, she was the strongest of the day, but I’m really just happy that I’m taking the GC.”

How it happened:

After three tough but close days of racing, the Vuelta a Burgos was set to be decided on the final stage with the Lagunas de Neila climb poised to decide both the stage winner and the general classification. Rolling out of Covarrubias on Sunday morning, there were 16 riders all within 15 seconds of each other and everything still to play for on the overall – meaning there were a lot of teams interested in making the stage as hard as possible.

Just like on stages 2 and 3, the day’s racing started hard and fast and it was impossible for a break to get away in the first two hours of the stage. Several riders tried, but the top teams – SD Worx in particular – were keeping the bunch strung out and the pace high.

After over 50km of racing, a breakaway formed with the possibly threatening group of Anna Shackley, Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx), Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM), Marie Le Net (FDJ-Nouvelle Aquitaine-Futuroscope) and Lucinda Brand (Trek-Segafredo) getting away over the categorised climb. Brand took maximum mountain points on the Alto de Arroyo, with Chabbey and Shackley picking up 2nd and 3rd.

The five-strong, all WorldTour breakaway quickly pulled out an advantage over the peloton, leaving the likes of BikeExchange-Jayco and EF Education-TIBCO-SVB to pull in the bunch. The efforts in the peloton were clearly working, as they kept the leaders on a tight leash, bringing the gap back to 36 seconds into the final 50km of the day.

The breakaway increased their lead slightly on the penultimate climb of the day and swept up the mountains points – Shackley took the maximum six – but heading into the flat run-in to the start of Lagunas de Neila, the peloton were closing down the gap. The leaders’ advantage had been over a minute at its peak, but by the 24km to go mark, it was down to 38 seconds, thanks to the efforts of Team DSM and UAE Team ADQ in the bunch.

The five riders were eventually caught at the base of the climb, and a lead group of 20 was all together as the race hit the Lagunas de Neila. After her breakaway efforts, Kopecky was quickly dropped as the climb began, and it was FDJ-Nouvelle Aquitaine-Futuroscope who was pushing the pace in support of second overall Évita Muzic.

An acceleration from Vollering saw a group of three emerge going into the final 5km of climbing, composed of the Dutchwoman, Labous and Paula Patiño (Movistar). Their advantage was only slim, but behind overall leader García was struggling, quickly falling 12 seconds behind the lead.

The remaining ten riders briefly came back together, but with the help of Fisher-Black, Vollering was able to attack again. Coming into the final kilometre of the race, Vollering emerged as the strongest climber and held off Labous to take the stage victory.

Labous limited her losses on Vollering to 17 seconds meaning she secured overall victory after the Dutchwoman lost time on stage 3. Muzic took third on the stage, finishing second overall and winning the young rider classification.

Vollering’s win also secured her the win in the mountains classification, and her teammate Kopecky will take home the points jersey after winning on stage 1.