Stage 3
Disaster struck on day 3 as the live stream had to be delayed due to a chronic case of Basque Weather Syndrome, i.e. it was epically rainy and grim. We did get the full broadcast, but it was unable to be shown until after the race had finished, sadly. With the climbs of Opakua and the Mende-esque mountaintop finish at Santa Teodosia, this was expected to be the decisive stage, and so it proved to be. The key climbers were therefore expected to duel it out - bad news for Bigla's Nikola Nosková, who emerged at this race two years ago, and with Cille withdrawing harboured Bigla's hopes, but had a bad crash in stage 2 therefore meaning the team were unsure who to lead with. Mitchelton of course had a similar problem of being unsure who to lead with - Amanda Spratt is the seeming team leader and is on form, but Annemiek van Vleuten is a super climber in her own right as we know, and two years ago, failing to decide who to lead with between van Vleuten and Garfoot led to them not opening a sufficient time gap on Moolman-Pasio and throwing the race away from a position of dominance when Ash put everybody to the sword on Jaizkibel on the final day.
A large break formed early, but Mitchelton strangled it because of the early bonification sprint, where Spratt took a further 3 seconds to add to her lead, with Mavi García again contesting, collecting 2 seconds, and Sheyla Gutiérrez, also of Movistar, shepherding her to it, to safeguard against other rivals also taking time. Things then progressed in that typical women's cycling fashion, that is to say, lots of small groups of 5 or 6 making attacks, gaining a few seconds and then teams not represented or who didn't like their chances from that break upping the tempo and chasing it back. Eventually two Dutch riders, Nicole Steigenga and Roos Hoogeboom, managed to get over 30 seconds, and it seemed like this move might stick. So much so, that the perennially combative Małgorzata Jasińska launched a long and hard charge to join them, knowing she is likely a stronger climber than either - though by the time she reached the duo, she'd had to ride hard solo on the flat before the climb, which rather negated that advantage.
With much of the race on the higher plateau in which Vitória-Gasteiz sits, and then the race climbing into the Montes Vascos above that, the weather introduced a new problem - the one that was hurting the broadcast too - they were ascending into the clouds, meaning visibility was poor, rain was heavy and it was all epic Basqueness - mountains, fog, rain etc.. Opakua is 7,4km @ 5,7%, but the first 2,5% are only about 3%, after which it ramps up to 11% and then the last 5km average 7%; Tayler Wiles decided she didn't fancy her chances in the last 2km of 12%+ against the likes of van Vleuten, and remembered how strong her performance on similar characteristic climbs to Opakua have been in the past on hillier stages of Thüringen in long escapes (remember the stage she would've won but was sent the wrong way?) and to a lesser extent California last year, so she attacked and put in a serious effort to open up a time gap. Having finished 36" down on stage 2 and not picked up any bonus time at all, she was not an immediate threat to Spratt, and aided by the poor visibility, she quickly got out of sight-out of mind, gaining 25".
For the rest of the group, Opakua was a thinning-out procedure, with few attacking outright, and Longo Borghini was 2nd over the summit - a teammate of Wiles of course - to continue to collect GPM points, while Bigla's choice for the day may well have been made as Sophie Wright was third across the summit, ahead of the Mitchelton duo, as she continued the fight over the QOM classification with her more illustrious rival. Wiles brought her lead up to 40" by going hard on the descent and picking good lines on the up-and-down section between the two climbs, so that while Movistar worked hard to try to pull her back they could not make inroads in the American's advantage. Narrow roads and painful gradients disintegrated the group on the final climb, but Tayler kept on grinding away, not having to worry about picking lines with other riders grinding to a halt around her, picking her rhythm and riding a strong final climb, not worrying about accelerations, just riding her race, and the advantage which had seemed tenuous just continued to hold. Sadly, the poor weather and the narrow roads meant we didn't get to see too much of what happened up front, whether there were outright attacks to shatter the group or if the gradients just thinned everything out by themselves, but by the end only 10 riders were within a minute.
More importantly, however, the first 21" of that were advantage that was still held by Tayler Wiles - as she took a spectacular solo victory, her first in almost two years (2017 Thüringen Rundfahrt the last time she took the line first), and moved herself right up the GC mix here; it was a 1-2 for Trek, in fact, as Longo Borghini took advantage of not having to work on Opakua with her teammate away up front, and opened up a few seconds' advantage over Annemiek van Vleuten, as Amanda Spratt floundered slightly and lost a few seconds to her teammate at the line - Annemiek tried but did not succeed, however, in robbing the final bonus seconds from the well-placed Soraya Paladin, who is on incredible form at the moment and who has a strong sprint weapon and likes racing in Spain (she's been conducting her interviews in pretty good Spanish this week too). The steepness of the summit and the horrible weather lent the finish line cam some real epic views as the riders emerged from the fog one by one, and climber upon climber emerged - Katrine Aalerud in 6th, Mavi García 7th, Elise Chabbey 8th, then the two Basques, Santesteban and Merino, still locked together in their battle over the best Basque jersey, with Ane's time bonuses still the deciding factor seeing as Eider appears to have a sprint weapon akin to that of Mara Abbott. Credit needs to be given to Amy Pieters, she was always likely to be Boels' best rider here as she can get over some obstacles - but not of this size. She did creditably here, losing just over a minute (how she deals with the 150km+ Oñati stage today will be interesting though), holding on to a GC top 10 as a result, and finishing ahead of people like Amialiusik, Nilsson and Pintar, all of whom are very creditable climbers indeed. Perhaps most disappointing was 2 minutes of time loss for Clara Koppenburg, on a climb which you might have thought suited her after her performances on Xorret del Catí and Mount Baldy, I'd say potentially the travel has impacted that but at the same time, Tayler Wiles raced California too...
It is, however, interesting that Spratt looked a bit vulnerable today on the steeper gradients; Soraya might be licking her lips at this, as with similar steep gradients in the second half of the last climb of today's stage, and knowing that she has the potential to pick up some time in a sprint especially if Spratt isn't contesting it with her, a 5" deficit can be overcome. The GC leading into the final stage is wide open, as Spratt has just five seconds over Paladin, and following today's stage, it's a bit harder for Mitchelton to do the 1-2 with Annemiek, as Elisa Longo Borghini and Tayler Wiles are at 12" and 16" respectively, with Annemiek at +18", so the Trek duo vs. the Mitchelton duo could be the battle to watch - and they could still lose out to Paladin who is foraging alone! Behind that, Movistar have Mavi in 6th, 32" down, Aalerud is at +43", and then at just over a minute you have Amy Pieters, then Santesteban and Merino at 1'05" with Santesteban ahead on countback even though Eider is ahead 'on the road' as she has 0" time bonus and Ane has taken a few.
Oh, and Parkhotel Valkenburg have now managed to lock down both of their starlets, Lorena Wiebes and Demi Vollering, until 2022, so this clearly means the team's new-found prominence is expected to continue!
Disaster struck on day 3 as the live stream had to be delayed due to a chronic case of Basque Weather Syndrome, i.e. it was epically rainy and grim. We did get the full broadcast, but it was unable to be shown until after the race had finished, sadly. With the climbs of Opakua and the Mende-esque mountaintop finish at Santa Teodosia, this was expected to be the decisive stage, and so it proved to be. The key climbers were therefore expected to duel it out - bad news for Bigla's Nikola Nosková, who emerged at this race two years ago, and with Cille withdrawing harboured Bigla's hopes, but had a bad crash in stage 2 therefore meaning the team were unsure who to lead with. Mitchelton of course had a similar problem of being unsure who to lead with - Amanda Spratt is the seeming team leader and is on form, but Annemiek van Vleuten is a super climber in her own right as we know, and two years ago, failing to decide who to lead with between van Vleuten and Garfoot led to them not opening a sufficient time gap on Moolman-Pasio and throwing the race away from a position of dominance when Ash put everybody to the sword on Jaizkibel on the final day.
A large break formed early, but Mitchelton strangled it because of the early bonification sprint, where Spratt took a further 3 seconds to add to her lead, with Mavi García again contesting, collecting 2 seconds, and Sheyla Gutiérrez, also of Movistar, shepherding her to it, to safeguard against other rivals also taking time. Things then progressed in that typical women's cycling fashion, that is to say, lots of small groups of 5 or 6 making attacks, gaining a few seconds and then teams not represented or who didn't like their chances from that break upping the tempo and chasing it back. Eventually two Dutch riders, Nicole Steigenga and Roos Hoogeboom, managed to get over 30 seconds, and it seemed like this move might stick. So much so, that the perennially combative Małgorzata Jasińska launched a long and hard charge to join them, knowing she is likely a stronger climber than either - though by the time she reached the duo, she'd had to ride hard solo on the flat before the climb, which rather negated that advantage.
With much of the race on the higher plateau in which Vitória-Gasteiz sits, and then the race climbing into the Montes Vascos above that, the weather introduced a new problem - the one that was hurting the broadcast too - they were ascending into the clouds, meaning visibility was poor, rain was heavy and it was all epic Basqueness - mountains, fog, rain etc.. Opakua is 7,4km @ 5,7%, but the first 2,5% are only about 3%, after which it ramps up to 11% and then the last 5km average 7%; Tayler Wiles decided she didn't fancy her chances in the last 2km of 12%+ against the likes of van Vleuten, and remembered how strong her performance on similar characteristic climbs to Opakua have been in the past on hillier stages of Thüringen in long escapes (remember the stage she would've won but was sent the wrong way?) and to a lesser extent California last year, so she attacked and put in a serious effort to open up a time gap. Having finished 36" down on stage 2 and not picked up any bonus time at all, she was not an immediate threat to Spratt, and aided by the poor visibility, she quickly got out of sight-out of mind, gaining 25".
For the rest of the group, Opakua was a thinning-out procedure, with few attacking outright, and Longo Borghini was 2nd over the summit - a teammate of Wiles of course - to continue to collect GPM points, while Bigla's choice for the day may well have been made as Sophie Wright was third across the summit, ahead of the Mitchelton duo, as she continued the fight over the QOM classification with her more illustrious rival. Wiles brought her lead up to 40" by going hard on the descent and picking good lines on the up-and-down section between the two climbs, so that while Movistar worked hard to try to pull her back they could not make inroads in the American's advantage. Narrow roads and painful gradients disintegrated the group on the final climb, but Tayler kept on grinding away, not having to worry about picking lines with other riders grinding to a halt around her, picking her rhythm and riding a strong final climb, not worrying about accelerations, just riding her race, and the advantage which had seemed tenuous just continued to hold. Sadly, the poor weather and the narrow roads meant we didn't get to see too much of what happened up front, whether there were outright attacks to shatter the group or if the gradients just thinned everything out by themselves, but by the end only 10 riders were within a minute.
More importantly, however, the first 21" of that were advantage that was still held by Tayler Wiles - as she took a spectacular solo victory, her first in almost two years (2017 Thüringen Rundfahrt the last time she took the line first), and moved herself right up the GC mix here; it was a 1-2 for Trek, in fact, as Longo Borghini took advantage of not having to work on Opakua with her teammate away up front, and opened up a few seconds' advantage over Annemiek van Vleuten, as Amanda Spratt floundered slightly and lost a few seconds to her teammate at the line - Annemiek tried but did not succeed, however, in robbing the final bonus seconds from the well-placed Soraya Paladin, who is on incredible form at the moment and who has a strong sprint weapon and likes racing in Spain (she's been conducting her interviews in pretty good Spanish this week too). The steepness of the summit and the horrible weather lent the finish line cam some real epic views as the riders emerged from the fog one by one, and climber upon climber emerged - Katrine Aalerud in 6th, Mavi García 7th, Elise Chabbey 8th, then the two Basques, Santesteban and Merino, still locked together in their battle over the best Basque jersey, with Ane's time bonuses still the deciding factor seeing as Eider appears to have a sprint weapon akin to that of Mara Abbott. Credit needs to be given to Amy Pieters, she was always likely to be Boels' best rider here as she can get over some obstacles - but not of this size. She did creditably here, losing just over a minute (how she deals with the 150km+ Oñati stage today will be interesting though), holding on to a GC top 10 as a result, and finishing ahead of people like Amialiusik, Nilsson and Pintar, all of whom are very creditable climbers indeed. Perhaps most disappointing was 2 minutes of time loss for Clara Koppenburg, on a climb which you might have thought suited her after her performances on Xorret del Catí and Mount Baldy, I'd say potentially the travel has impacted that but at the same time, Tayler Wiles raced California too...
It is, however, interesting that Spratt looked a bit vulnerable today on the steeper gradients; Soraya might be licking her lips at this, as with similar steep gradients in the second half of the last climb of today's stage, and knowing that she has the potential to pick up some time in a sprint especially if Spratt isn't contesting it with her, a 5" deficit can be overcome. The GC leading into the final stage is wide open, as Spratt has just five seconds over Paladin, and following today's stage, it's a bit harder for Mitchelton to do the 1-2 with Annemiek, as Elisa Longo Borghini and Tayler Wiles are at 12" and 16" respectively, with Annemiek at +18", so the Trek duo vs. the Mitchelton duo could be the battle to watch - and they could still lose out to Paladin who is foraging alone! Behind that, Movistar have Mavi in 6th, 32" down, Aalerud is at +43", and then at just over a minute you have Amy Pieters, then Santesteban and Merino at 1'05" with Santesteban ahead on countback even though Eider is ahead 'on the road' as she has 0" time bonus and Ane has taken a few.
Oh, and Parkhotel Valkenburg have now managed to lock down both of their starlets, Lorena Wiebes and Demi Vollering, until 2022, so this clearly means the team's new-found prominence is expected to continue!