Femke Gerritse (SD Worx-Protime) won stage 3 of La Vuelta Femenina in Huesca ahead of Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Linda Zanetti (Uno-X Mobility).
Led out by her teammates Anna van der Breggen and Mischa Bredewold, Gerritse launched her sprint 175 metres from the finish. Vos came out of her slipstream but could not pass the 23-year-old who crossed the line first and also takes the GC lead and the red jersey from Letizia Paternoster (Liv-AlUla-Jayco).
"It's crazy, I really didn't expect this today. I took the bonus sprint and thought 'okay, my sprint is good', the final was so chaotic. I just stayed calm, and I felt someone coming, I think it was Marianne, but I could keep first place," said Gerritse after the first Women's WorldTour victory of her career.
Crosswinds and crashes in the final 30km caused splits in the peloton, and although some of the dropped riders made it back, others lost time.
"It was a chaotic stage, the first part was really twisty and turny, wet, and up and down, and then the wind was coming. But it was not really the right direction, more headwind than crosswind.
"In the end, I was happy that it was a sprint. I had a really, really perfect lead-out, I'm so grateful to the team. It was full headwind until the town, and then we took the lead, I think, with two kilometres to go, and Anna and Mischa were just amazing because they kept on going and going and I could stay calm," Gerritse described the final.
How it unfolded
Even though there were no classified climbs on the 132.4km stage from Barbastro to Huesca, the race profile was far from flat.
Maaike Coljé (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Marion Borras (Cofidis), Magdalene Lind (Coop-Repsol), Marina Garau (BePink-Imatra-Bongioanni) and Arian Gilabert (Eneicat-CM) went away in the first kilometres of the stage to form the break of the day.
Lea-Lin Teutenberg (Lotto) was chasing on her own for a long time but never made it to the front group. Instead, the five escapees built an advantage of up to three minutes, putting Lind into the virtual red jersey.
In the second half of the stage, the peloton slowly but surely pulled back the break, causing Coljé to attack her companions when the gap had been shrunk to 45 seconds with 37km to go.
Lind and Garau could follow Coljé’s move while Borras and Gilabert were dropped. But this was only a brief respite, and the last escapees were reeled in 33km from the finish, just in time for the intermediate sprint.
Gerritse was first over the line ahead of Vos and Paternoster, putting Gerritse into the virtual GC lead. Right after leaving Tramacet, the echelon action began, with GC riders such as Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck), Clara Koppenburg (Cofidis), and Marion Bunel (Visma-Lease a Bike) caught out.
A crash with 20.5km to go took down Ane Santesteban (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi) and Mona Mitterwallner (Human Powered Health), among others, and split the peloton. The second group included Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (AG Insurance-Soudal), Neve Bradbury (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto), Riejanne Markus (Lidl-Trek), and Barbara Malcotti (Human Powered Health), but they managed to close the 20-second gap to the first peloton within a few kilometres.
In the outskirts of Huesca, Kristen Faulkner (EF Education-Oatly) tried a late attack but could not get away, setting up a mass sprint. SD Worx-Protime took control and delivered Gerritse to victory. A mass crash just inside the 2km mark held up many riders, but they all received the winner’s time due to the 3km rule.
Results
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