Spratt wins Emakumeen Bira stage 2

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Amanda Spratt (Mitchelton-Scott) won stage 2 of the Emakumeen Bira. The rolling stage ended with a one-kilometre uphill, and Spratt was strongest up the climb, narrowly beating Soraya Paladin (Alé Cipollini). Margarita Victoria Garcia (Movistar Team) came back from a mechanical with six kilometres to go to finish in third place. With the stage win, Spratt also takes over the overall lead.

"The team was absolutely amazing today," said the happy winner after the finish. "We came to the Basque Country early and looked at the stages, and the girls said they wanted to back me here. They did an amazing job, there's no way I couldn't win after the work they did."

The 111-kilometre stage from Aduna to Amasa consisted of a big loop with two classified climbs followed by four laps of a rolling 15.5-km circuit that hosted two points sprint and two sprints for bonus seconds. The finish was at the top of a one-kilometre climb.

Sophie Wright (Bigla) won the first mountain sprint ahead of Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) who was then first over the line atop the second climb and thus defended her mountain jersey. The 4.4-kilometre climb caused splits in the peloton, but things came back together before the first points sprint that was won by Elena Cecchini (Canyon-SRAM).

Malgorzata Jasinska (Movistar Team) went solo and built an advantage of up to 50 seconds in the rain. She stayed in front for one lap of the circuit and won the first bonus sprint with 48 km to go, but she had only a small gap left at that point. An elite group including Amy Pieters (Boels-Dolmans), Ane Santesteban (WNT-Rotor), Longo Borghini, Spratt, and Paladin bridged to the Polish champion, but the peloton reeled them all in quickly.

Next to attack was Alena Amialiusik (Canyon-SRAM). Her advantage never exceeded 25 seconds, and although the Belarusian champion won the second points sprint, she was brought back on the climb that followed. Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Trek-Segafredo) put in an attack over the top of the climb but did not get away, and there was a bit of a calm before the storm as teams and riders regrouped.

Tayler Wiles (Trek-Segafredo) made a move 19 km from the finish that was brought back by Lucy Kennedy (Mitchelton-Scott). Kennedy's teammate Annemiek van Vleuten won the second bonus sprint ahead of Garcia and Longo Borghini, and the climb split the peloton. A group of ten riders that included the three Movistar riders Sheyla Gutierrez, Eider Merino, and Garcia held a small advantage for a while; as a chasing group of about 20 riders closed the gap, Gutierrez launched an attack off the front that was reeled in by Van Vleuten with 10 km to go.

Cordon-Ragot made another move in the final and stayed in front for a while, but was eventually caught six kilometres from the finish, again due to the work of Van Vleuten. On the finishing climb, Spratt profited from the work of her teammates and took the lead, holding off Paladin and a resurgent Garcia to the line.

Spratt leads not only the overall classification, but also the points classification; since Spratt will be in the white leader's jersey, stage 1 winner D'hoore will wear the orange points jersey on stage 3. Tanja Erath (Canyon-SRAM) defended the blue intermediate sprint jersey, Sofia Bertizzolo (Team Virtu Cycling) still leads the U23 ranking, and Santesteban continues to wear the green jersey as best Basque rider. The Emakumeen Bira continues Friday with a hard stage including a first-category climb and a steep mountaintop finish.

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