Yesterday’s afternoon ended the BeNe Ladies Tour. During this stage race I’ve improved myself and I’m really satisfied for what I’ve achieved.
The prologue was 3.9km long, it was all flat with only one dangerous curve. I ended 19th even if I couldn’t find the perfect rhythm whereas my feelings were pretty good.
The first stage was 136km long and it has six parts of cobblestones and two of them were pretty hard. The “multichampion” Marianne Vos won the stage giving, with two other two riders, a few seconds to the peloton. I was 8th in the sprint, but I did some technical mistakes.
In the third day we had to do two half-stages: in the morning there was a 98km long stage, also with pavè and wind. For this reason the peloton broke up and I managed to stay in the first group composed of 68 riders. I couldn’t sprint at the end of the stage because I’ve been envolved in a crash 2km to the finish (without any consequences). Fortunatly the crash was after the 3km to the finish, so I didn’t lost precious time for the general classification. In the afternoon the second half-stage was an Individual Time Trial of 10km and I took 14.01 minutes to do it (more or less 42km/h in avarage). In the first part were long straights and the second part was more technical. I did only 30 seconds more than the first and I archived an incredible 10th place. The sensations were good and I found my rhythm since the firsts meters also thank to my DS Davide Arzeni, who gave me the perfects technical instructions, and my team mates Ilaria Sanguineti and Alessia Vigilia, who cheered me for the whole race.
Yesterday was, finally, the last satge. 112km and a really difficult circuit with a lot of curves and narrow streets. After a lot of break-away attempts, we ended in a group sprint. In the lasts kilometers my team mates were perfect: Marta Cavalli and Silvia Persico did a great job extending the group and Ilaria Sanguineti helped me to stay in the firsts positions untill 2km to the finish, when she stopped the attack of the English Archibald. The sprint has been very hard and Marta Bastianelli “stole me” the first palce, besides I’m really happy with my second place because behind me were two great sprinters as Jolien D’Hoore and Marianne Vos. This placement allowed me to take seconds of rebate, so I “jumped” in the 9th position of the general classification and in the 2nd of the youth classification.
Team work always pays and we, Valcar PBM, have demonstrated it! Thank you girls!

Click on the picture to see others!

Rispondi