Great Britain's Cat Ferguson (Movistar) claimed her maiden victory in her first year as a professional at Navarra Women's Elite Classics, outsprinting a reduced group in rain-soaked Pamplona to take a big win.
After an attacking finale where several riders tried to get away but couldn't make anything stick, the race came down to a group sprint with several cold and wet riders battling it out for the line. It was the 19-year-old Brit who proved the fastest, taking the win by a fair margin.
Soraya Paladin (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) finished fast to take second, whilst Ruth Edwards (Human Powered Health) claimed third.
The northern Spanish race was packed with climbs, and made harder by the rain and hail that began to fall in the middle of the afternoon, but despite various attempts to make it hard over the route's nine climbs, a group of over 25 riders made it to the finish in Pamplona for a sprint.
This was Ferguson's first win as a senior professional rider after taking two wins at the end of last year as a junior stagiaire for Movistar, and her first victory of the season after a podium finish in Trofeo Alfredo Binda in March.
How it unfolded
The race started in Pamplona, with nine punchy climbs 134km of racing across Navarra in store for the riders before a slightly uphill finish back in Pamplona.
In the first part of the race, there were plenty of attacks, but generally the high pace in the peloton up the short but steep climbs stopped anyone from getting away properly. There was no real break for the first 70km, though the peloton was slowly being whittled down.
On the Muro de Artajona, a 900m ramp through narrow city streets with a gradient of 9.6% with 58km to go, an injection of pace threatened to split up the peloton, and there was a brief fracturing, but things came back together on the flat.
A lull in the peloton after this allowed the day's first real escape to get away, as Eukene Larrarte (Massi-Baix Ter) and Nicole Steinmetz (Eneicat-CMTeam) went clear from the bunch. They were away from some 25km, as rain and hail started to fall, but were caught with 28km to go, on the 9km climb to Tirapu.
Liv AlUla Jayco started to up the pace on the climb with Ana Trevisi and Monica Trinca Colonel, which strung up the bunch over the top of the climb, but a larger group reformed on the flat.
On the next climb, with 16km to go, Trinca Colonel attacked over the top, joined by Paula Patiño (Movistar) and Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto), but again they were soon brought back by the main group led by Lidl-Trek and UAE Team ADQ.
The attacks continued in the last 13km – as did the rain – but no one could make a move stick, meaning a big group came into Pamplona to contest the sprint. There were no organised lead-outs to speak of and it was a big fight to the line, but despite opening up early, no one could come round the prodigious Ferguson and she had time to sit up and celebrate over the finish line.
Results
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