Vuelta Femenina: Solo raid nets victory on stage 3 for Cedrine Kerbaol

Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) won stage 3 of the Vuelta Femenina with a trademark attack into a descent.

After a move by her teammate Alice Towers on a cobbled climb with 2.5km to go was reeled in, the Frenchwoman counterattacked into the descent, quickly opened up a gap, and held off the chasers to the finish by four seconds.

Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) won the sprint of the chasing peloton to finish second ahead of Sarah Van Dam (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Liane Lippert (Movistar).

Due to bonus seconds, Kopecky moves within two seconds of Franziska Koch (FDJ United-Suez) who was struggling in the final but managed to finish in the peloton to narrowly defend her red jersey.

"It feels crazy. We already won with Noemi [Rüegg], she took the red, and after that, she crashed. So we went from very high to very low, and now we are back up. We think a lot about her, it's a mix of a lot of emotions. My team did the best ever race, Kristen [Faulkner] tried to attack in the final, then Alice attacked as well. There were only four or five girls who could follow, and as soon as they took her back, I countered. This one is for the team," said Kerbaol after her victory.

Going into the race, EF Education-Oatly wanted to focus on a GC result, but the team decided to go for the stage win on stage 3.

"Before the Vuelta, I told my sport directors it would be nice to win a stage as well, and they were like, 'let's focus on the GC'. At the briefing today, we were like, 'okay, there is a nice finish, let's try everything we can'. And we tried it. I was just waiting for this moment. The group was really reduced, there are already three days of racing in the legs, the girls start to be a bit tired in general," said Kerbaol.

More to come.

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