Rider of the moment Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ) stormed to another win at Durango-Durango Emakumeen Saria with a powerful climbing effort, securing her first win since taking the GC at La Vuelta Femenina 10 days ago.
Blasi rode away from a leading group near the top of the steep Alto de Goiuria, 8.5km from the finish, to solo to the win in Durango and add her second one-day win of the year after Amstel Gold Race.
Behind her, the two remaining members of the late leading group battled in a two-up sprint for the podium, with Évita Muzic (FDJ United-Suez) taking second ahead of Alice Towers (EF Education-Oatly).
Once the day's early break was caught, it was a typically attacking day over the final three climbs in the Basque Country, with various moves going and coming back and whittling down the bunch, until a select group got away early on the final climb, setting up Blasi's winning move.
"To be honest, I didn’t feel as good as I expected at the start of the race, but my sensations improved as the kilometres went by," Blasi said.
"Today I was surrounded by the girls from the Development Team, the team I was part of until a few months ago, and they did an incredible job to give me the opportunity to fight for the win in the final.
"On the second climb I wasn’t feeling great, so I tried to stay under control without pushing too much. Then on the final climb, things changed a bit also because of Magdeleine Vallieres’ crash, and I decided to attack. In the end, I managed to open a gap and win a race that means a lot to me."
How it unfolded
The 25th edition of Durango Emakumeen Saria rolled out of Durango for its traditional hilly course, 113km with four laps of the Alto de Miota, then finishing with the back-to-back climbs of Areitio and two times up different sides of the Alto de Goiuria before a flat finish in Durango.
2025 winner Isabella Holmgren (Lidl-Trek) wasn't on the start list, nor were any former winners, so it was to be a new victor in one of the calendar's longest-running one-day races.
Early in the day, a three-rider break went away, composed of Fariba Hashimi (Vini Fantini-BePink) and the Cantabria Deporte-Rio Miera duo of Eva Anguela and Leyre Almena. They led for all of the first half of the race, and still had a lead of four minutes with 50km to go, but the climbing to come would put an end to that.
UAE Team ADQ, FDJ and EF were the teams doing the work on the final circuit loop and into the final climbs, quickly eating into the leaders' advantage. On an uncategorised rise before the Areitio, an injection of pace from Lidl-Trek saw an elite group split off the front of the peloton, but that split was undone soon after.
The start of the climbing kicked off various attacks and accelerations, which meant the break was caught with 30km to go. A high pace of the first Alto de Goiuria ascent whittled down the peloton, and then it was on the second time up that a small group broke off the front of the bunch: Blasi, Muzic, Towers, Magdeleine Vallieres (EF Education-Oatly) and Riejanne Markus (Lidl-Trek).
On a brief downhill, world champion Vallieres slid out on a corner and crashed, also holding up Markus, leaving just three in front into the final 10km.
With 8.5km to go, on a really steep section near the top of the climb, Blasi simply set a pace that others could not follow, to go solo ahead of Muzic and Towers. The pair behind had nothing left to respond to Blasi, who quickly built a lead of 30 seconds and comfortably powered to the win.
Results
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