How the race finished
Marta Lach (Ceratizit WNT) took the overall honours in the Tour of Chongming Island, after a dominant display from Ceratizit WNT across all three stages.
Full results are available below.
How it happened
In a repeat of last year’s opening stage, Mylène de Zoete (Ceratizit WNT) took the win, outsprinting Tereza Neumanova (UAE Team ADQ) and Sofie van Rooijen (Volkerwessels) after the peloton came in for a mass sprint. The peloton remained intact for most of the opening stage, as wet conditions hampered spirits. While a large breakaway did go clear in the middle of the stage, things came back together allowing Ceratizit WNT to sweep up intermediate sprint points. With the most bonus seconds to her name, De Zoete’s teammate Marta Lach had launched a late attack in the closing kilometres, but was caught before the line, allowing a well-positioned de Zoete to come through for the win.
Stage Two saw Marta Lach finish ahead of Mylène de Zoete and Kathrin Schweinberger in a Ceratizit WNT trifecta. It was a big bunch sprint on a wide road, which allowed the powerful Ceratizit WNT leadout train to dominate. An initial break by Tamara Dronova (Roland) was joined by Zhao Qing (China), before the peloton reeled them back in with 39 km to go. As they were caught, Zhang Hao (China Liv Pro Cycling) was briefly off the front, before Aurela Nerlo (Winspace) attacked with 23 km to go. Back in the peloton the gap was managed by the sprinters’ teams, with Nerlo brought back just outside the 3km marker. In the final kilometres a big turn by Sandra Alonso (Ceratizit WNT) set up Schweinberger to lead out on the final straight. Eleonora Gasparrini (UAE Team ADQ) came up alongside, but couldn’t match the power of the Ceratizit rider. It was only in the final 100m that her two teammates came off her wheel to win comfortably.
Stage Three was headlined by the breakaway duo Anne Knijnenburg (Volkerwessels) and Nela Slanikova (Team Dukla Praha), who worked together to gain over a minute and a half on the chasing peloton. With 23km to go Knijnenburg pushed on solo, but with the strength of the Ceratizit WNT team as seen over the previous two stages, the peloton brought her back with 4.5 km to go. Volkerwessels challenged hard in the final sprint as well, with Sofie van Rooijen flying past UAE Team ADQ’s Tereza Neumanova. However, Marta Lach came out of van Rooijen’s slipstream with speed, pushing through to take the win and taking Scarlett Souren on her wheel with her into second place. With the stage win, Lach took the overall victory.
Full Results
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