D'Hoore wins La Madrid Challenge by La Vuelta

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Wiggle-High5 were the clear dominators of the Madrid Challenge by la Vuelta race on Sunday afternoon as Jolien D'Hoore and teammate Chloe Hosking took a stunning 1-2 bunch sprint triumph.

D'Hoore and Hosking surged out of the right hand side of the pack on the slightly rising gradient of the city centre's Paseo de la Castellana to net the top two spots, with Italy's Marta Bastianelli (Ale Cipollini-Galassia) a relatively distant third.

For D'Hoore the triumph is the latest success in a season which has already seen the 26-year-old Belgian garner a bronze medal in the Olympic Omnium and four national track titles.

Outright UCI Women's WorldTour winner Megan Guarnier (Boels-Dolmans), already mathematically the winner of the series, crossed the line in 46th place, 36 seconds back. Fifth in the second last round, the GP de Plouay-Bretagne, Guarnier had led the series, taking over from her teammate Lizzie Armitstead, after winning the Tour of California.

After an uneventful first hour, Guarnier all but opened up the late attacks herself, charging off the front of the 13-lap event through Madrid city centre, with 38 kilometres of the 87 kilometre race. But although a five rider group formed, it quickly fizzed out.

The most promising move came with Simona Frapporti (Hitec Products) and Claudia Lichtenberg (Lotto-Soudal) 20 kilometres later, which gained nearly 30 seconds at one point. The gap shrank to 20 seconds by the bell for the last, 5.8 kilometre lap, but not even a crash on the right side of the peloton bringing down several riders could stop the duo from being reeled in and a fragmented bunch sprint materializing.

"I'm really happy with this WorldTour win, Chloe and I were riding behind Boels-Dolmans who were doing a great lead-out. But then I lost Chloe's wheel with 400 metres to go, got through a gap there and could find a space and then I took it from there," D'Hoore said afterwards.

The slight uphill gradient, D'Hoore said, favoured her a little "because it's easier to follow your team and you don't have riders coming to you from left and right. Of course you have to be strong enough to stay there as well, though."

Looking ahead towards the World Championships, and bearing in mind the heat and the type of urban circuit that featured in Madrid and which will again in Doha next month, D'Hoore said she could be reasonably optimistic about her chances of battling for a rainbow jersey. "It's kind of like Qatar in some ways, and it was a big last test. Women's racing is unpredictable, lots of things can happen like a break, but luckily it was possible to win here, and I'm quite confident now because of that."

How it unfolded

The 87km race was led early on by a breakaway of four riders: Anna Plichta (BTC City Ljubljana), Eri Yonamine (Poitou-Charentes.Futuroscope.86), Natalie Van Gogh (Parkhotel Valkenburg Continental Team), and Margarita Victoria Garcia (Bizkaia-Durango), but they were reeled back in halfway through the race.

There were a number of brief attacks that followed, including one by Guarnier with 40km to go, but no significant breakaways could form until two riders, Claudia Lichtenberg (Lotto Soudal) and Simona Frapporti (Hitec Products) went clear with 20km remaining.

The pair held a solid lead of half a minute heading into the final lap, but when the sprinters' teams finally assembled at the front, their gap plummeted. They were swept up with 4km to go.

Boels Dolmans led out for the final kilometres, looking to set up Blaak, but were forced to sprint early and the Dutch rider faded from the podium positions by the line, finishing fourth.

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