Demi Vollering conquered the monstrous 19.1km Coll de Pal climb solo to win stage 2 of the Volta a Catalunya Femenina, after another perfect day for FDJ-Suez moved her into the race leader's jersey.
The Dutch star attacked with 10.7km remaining on the brutal climb near La Molina, with only Visma-Lease a Bike's Marion Bunel able to follow her initially.
The pair extended their lead on all of the chasers out to more than 1:30 as the slopes continued, but Bunel always looked to be struggling more as Vollering powered on, eventually dropping her to go solo in the final kilometre.
Vollering took over the race lead from her teammate Elise Chabbey, who did a stellar job leading out the Dutch rider before her eventual attack, with stage runner-up Bunel moving into third overall thanks to her strong performance, crossing the line 31 seconds after Vollering.
Chabbey lost the sprint for third place and the remaining bonus seconds to Femke de Vries (Visma-Lease a Bike), but kept her place on the overall podium after finishing two minutes down on her team leader.
"It was a pretty hard day, a lot of climbing in the beginning, and it was super hot. We wanted to set a pace in the bunch because we wanted to drop some riders directly," said Vollering, recalling how the climb played out.
"I decided to attack, and only Bunel could follow me, so we were two, but the climb is not that steep, and there was a lot of headwind, so it was hard to set a pace. She was super strong today, so it was hard to get rid of her, but I managed in the last 600 metres or so."
Vollering will start the Volta a Catalunya Femenina's final stage on Sunday with a 2:08 lead over Chabbey, with Bunel a further 21 seconds back on GC.
"I think priority is GC [on stage 3], we already had 2 really hard days, and I really felt yesterday in the legs, so I made today a bit harder for myself," said Vollering.
"Yesterday, I pretty much killed myself and today again, so tomorrow I think the most important thing is to keep the jersey."
Results
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