It looked like history could be about to repeat on stage 1 of the Santos Women’s Tour Down Under on Saturday, when for the second year running a solo rider was off the front with a gap of over one minute with 20 kilometres to go.
Last year, Daniek Hengeveld caused a major surprise when she attacked solo inside of 50 kilometres to go and managed to hold off the peloton by 36 seconds to take the win, while Ally Wollaston took second in a chaotic field sprint.
This year, Alessia Virgilia (Uno-X Mobility) made a solo move with around 100 kilometres to go, with FDJ United-SUEZ taking on the responsibility of setting the tempo in the peloton for their sprinter Wollaston. Virgilia’s lead went up to over three minutes as Wollaston stayed in the pack, trying to keep calm and let her teammates do their job.
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“As a sprinter, it's kind of out of your hands. I was never going to go to the front and chase it down, so there's actually no point in me stressing. So I tried not to think about it too much,” Wollaston told the assembled media after the race.
“But yeah, there are moments of nervousness where you hope that you will get a chance to sprint to the final and sprint for the win but I had full faith in my team today that they would finish it off.”
And her teammates delivered, especially Amber Kraak who spent the majority of the stage at the front keeping the gap manageable, until a few teams added riders to the rotation in the final 30 kilometres.
“I thought a lot about last year, then Ally sprinted to the second place, and Daniek Hengeveld had the amazing win, and we just didn't want to have too big gaps, so we had to work really hard in the end. But Alessia was strong, so at some point, when the gap was 3:30, I had to push a bit harder, and then it was not so nice anymore,” Kraak said.
It did, however, justify the “full trust” Wollaston had that her team would reel in the solo rider.
“I think this morning we said we were fully committed to the plan of sprinting today,” Wollaston added. “So yeah, the girls had full belief in me. We were just fully committed to the sprint and the girls rode so amazingly today.
"They were all there for me in the final, and Amber rode the front basically the whole race so I really owe today to them, and I'm so thankful that I could finish it off for the girls.”
Virgilia was caught around the final 200 metres of the stage as Wollaston accelerated on the uphill drag to the finish line, crossing the line with a few bike lengths to spare.
“[The win] means the world," the New Zealander said. "I'm blown away. Actually, you could probably see on the finish, I wasn't quite expecting that when I turned around. I was actually shocked.
"I was just waiting for the moment that someone would come past me. So I'm blown away and really, really happy. It's a huge confidence boost going into the next few days.”
With the win, Wollaston tops the general classification with a lead of four seconds on Josie Nelson (Picnic-PostNL) and six seconds on Olivia Baril (Movistar).
The rider will try to defend the leader’s ochre jersey on he rolling stage 2, a 130.7km stage from Magill to Paracombe ending in the Adelaide Hills with three kickers near the end of the stage.
“I'll try and do it justice tomorrow,” Wollaston said,
“I think it would be rude not to you have to respect a jersey like this in the WorldTour so we'll do everything as a team tomorrow to keep this jersey within the team hopefully."
"It would be great if we could keep it on my shoulders, but we'll have to wait and see for tomorrow.”
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