Picture 1 of 18
Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) secured general victory on the inaugural UAE Tour Girls race, as Charlotte Kool (Workforce DSM) received the high-speed closing dash stage to the Abu Dhabi Breakwater.
Longo Borghini set-up her general success with victory on the stage 3 mountain end to Jebel Hafeet with a dominant trip with new teammate Gaia Realini.
Trek-Segafredo fastidiously protected Longo Borghini and Realini on the flat 119 km stage round Abu Dhabi to provide them an vital early-season WorldTour win.
Realini completed second general at seven seconds, with Silvia Persico (UAE Workforce ADQ) third at 1:18.
Longo Borghini thanked her teammates for his or her assist through the four-day race.
“I’m very joyful about this and likewise actually pleased with my workforce and the way in which we rode this week. I feel we actually confirmed workforce spirit,” she stated after lifting the winner’s trophy and pulling on the purple winner’s jersey.
“At present was fairly a simple day at first however then it obtained a bit hectic, particularly in the previous couple of kilometres the place the velocity was excessive, we had been in the course of town with all of the corners and there have been cat eyes in the course of the highway.”
The fourth and closing stage ended with one other mass dash and Kool got here from behind to fly previous Lorena Wiebes (Workforce SD Worx) in sight of the end line. Chiara Consonni additionally handed Wiebes to take second place on the day.
“It was not on function,” Kool stated as she got here from behind to win the dash.
“It was actually hectic, I misplaced my lead-out, Pfeiffer, however I stated ‘wait’, as a result of she shouldn’t launch Lorena. Then I simply knew I needed to be affected person and hope for a spot. After I noticed the hole, I simply went full.”
The way it occurred
The overall classification had been settled on stage 3, and the wind wasn’t sturdy, so stage 4, masking 119 km by means of Abu Dhabi and its environment, did not ship as a lot motion because the earlier levels.
After a number of assaults, a break of Petra Stiasny (Fenix-Deceuninck), Aileen Schweikart (Laboral Kutxa Fundación Euskadi), and Iris Monticolo (Prime Ladies Fassa Bortolo) obtained away. They elevated their benefit to virtually six minutes with 75 km to go earlier than Trek-Segafredo began to regulate the race.
Finally, the sprinters’ groups took over the chase and steadily lowered the hole. 30 km from the end, the three escapees had been solely 30 seconds forward, and the peloton backed off a bit so as to not make the catch too early and encourage new assaults.
The break was lastly caught when Liane Lippert and Emma Norsgaard (each Movistar Workforce) launched an assault on the on-ramp to the Sheikh Khalifa Bridge with 14 km to go. Longo Borghini herself bridged to them on the head of a gaggle of 4, and shortly afterwards, the peloton got here again too.
Within the dash, Wiebes reacted when Mylène de Zoete (Ceratizit-WNT) opened the dash 250 metres from the road. The inexperienced jersey rapidly took the lead, however Kool and Consonni got here from behind with superior velocity and took first and second place.
As a consequence of her second stage victory, Kool additionally received the factors classification whereas Realini was the very best U23 rider. Agnieszka Skalniak-Sójka (Canyon-SRAM) took dwelling the black jersey for the intermediate sprints classification, and UAE Workforce ADQ received the workforce classification.
Outcomes powered by FirstCycling (opens in new tab)
