Italy's Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) took victory in the women's Tre Valli Varesine, gaming a two-up move in the finale to beat Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) in a sprint in Varese.
After an attacking final few laps in northern Italy, Vollering launched an attack on the final climb, taking Longo Borghini with her, and the Italian Champion remained glued to her wheel, not taking any kind of turn for the final 2.5km.
Having sat steadfastly on Vollering's wheel and forcing the Dutch rider to lead out to the finish, Longo Borghini then launched her superior sprint in the final 300m to speed to the victory.
Newly-crowned European champion Vollering had to settle for second, whilst the chasing group battled it out for third, with Noemi Rüegg (EF Education-Oatly) just snagging the final place on the podium.
This is Longo Borghini's first win since August, after settling for 15th and 10th in the World and European Championships, respectively, which had been her big end-of-season goals.
"It's a big revenge for me. I was really preparing for the World Championships and Europeans, and nothing went according to the plan," she said post-race. "But today, I'm very pleased to get the victory in front of Demi Vollering, who is a champion I respect a lot.
"This is what I love about sport, because some days you are the nail and sometimes you're the hammer, and today I was the hammer, but on Saturday I was definitely the nail."
She put her win down to both the mental and physical, and "also a lot of anger".
"I really wanted the victory, because as I said, I was preparing for big [goals] and I failed both of them, so today I really wanted to win here."
How it unfolded
Starting out from Busto Arsizio, the women's Tre Valli Varesine saw the peloton take on a 40km starting section, before completing six laps of the main circuit, featuring the Montello climb (2km at 4.5%) and the Salita dei Ronchi (2.5km at 5.3%).
In the early part of the race, a breakaway made up of mainly Continental-level riders and Italian teams got away, but they were never allowed much of a gap, and once the race hit the laps, they were caught with 70km to go as the action kicked off early.
Ava Holmgren (Lidl-Trek), Amber Kraak (FDJ-Suez) and Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE ADQ) all tried to attack soon after the catch, but nothing immediately stuck with the big teams keeping things together.
With 55km to go, a group of 10 broke off the front of the peloton, including several favourites like Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto), Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (AG Insurance-Soudal) and Niamh Fisher-Black (Lidl-Trek).
They got a small gap that was easily bridgeable from the peloton, meaning they were soon joined by Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez), Longo Borghini and newly-crowned World Champion Magdeleine Vallieres (EF Education-Oatly), plus others to make it 15 in the front with 38km to go.
On the penultimate time up the Montello climb with 30km to go, Longo Borghini launched her attack, taking Vollering and Fisher-Black with her, but with EF leading the chase, they were brought back only 5km later.
Vallieres and Karlijn Swinkels (UAE Team ADQ) were the next to attack, and they had a 20-second lead with 15km to go, though FDJ were trying to close that gap. On Montello, Vallieres attacked her Dutch companion to go solo, but moves from behind soon saw her joined by Fisher-Black, Vollering and Longo Borghini.
However, their gap was only small, and without total commitment, they were caught with 5km to go by the chasers – although minus Moolman-Pasio, who crashed out of the chase group on a roundabout.
On the final ascent of the Salita dei Ronchi, Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Deceuninck) was the first to launch a move, though Vollering soon countered, with Longo Borghini on her wheel, and with 2km to go, this pair had a 20-second gap on Fisher-Black and Kastelijn, who were then absorbed by the chasers.
Longo Borghini offered little assistance to the European champion, forcing Vollering to try and ride her off her wheel, but failing, much to the Dutch rider's frustration. Longo Borghini didn't take so much as a brief turn for the whole finale, forcing Vollering to lead out the sprint, and then launching with 200 metres to take the win.
Results
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