Van Vleuten wins prologue at Euskal Emakumeen Bira

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Annemiek van Vleuten (Bigla) won the prologue at the Euskal Emakumeen Bira, a five-day stage race held in the Basque Country of Spain this week. The Dutch time trial champion covered the 1.9km course in 2:29 minutes beating Australia's Katrin Garfoot (Orica-AIS) and Anna van der Breggen (Rabo-Liv).

Van Vleuten is now leading the race by one second ahead of Garfoot and two seconds ahead of van der Breggen ahead of stage 1a 96.8km race in Arrasate on Thursday.

Garfoot had set the fastest time early on in the prologue, 2:30 minutes, however, van Vlueten was the only rider to break her time by one second near the end of the event. 

"I'm really happy. I felt strong. It's always great to win, especially when you come as one of the favourites for the prologue," van Vleuten said. "I know that I am good over this distance but I also knew I couldn't make any mistakes.

"I've just spent three weeks in the mountains and I thought maybe I'd lost some speed because all I did on the training camp was climbing. I didn't do any speed work and this prologue was just sprinting from one corner to the next. This gives me confidence that I have come from altitude in good shape and I am looking forward to using Bira to get some more hard work done. It's a nice way to start the second part of the season."

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