Having won the opening stage of the Itzulia Women on Friday, Mischa Bredewold (SD Worx-Protime) started stage 2 wearing the neon-yellow leader’s jersey. The 25-year-old was the favourite for stage 2, with five Itzulia stage victories since 2024 and the middle stage the least hilly of the three days of racing.
A balancing act for both another stage victory and a good GC came up just short against late-attacker Dominika Włodarczyk (UAE Team ADQ) and finished second on the middle stage Saturday. However, the podium spot allowed her to retain the overall lead.
“You cannot really focus on both, so you need to pick your battles and be smart. I think in the final, being there alone and then only with Valentina [Cavallar], I was maybe also doubting a little bit when I should jump and when not," said Bredewold after the stage.
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"I think making the call to not jump on Dominika and Shirin [van Anrooij] was more a GC-related call. Ideally you want both, but we knew it was going to be difficult.”
With the leader’s jersey on Bredewold’s shoulders, SD Worx-Protime were expected to control the race, and with only five riders, this was no easy task.
“It was like we expected with a lot of attacks. The attacks started perhaps a bit later than we thought, but then you know the final will be really hard. Everybody was fresh, and you know they were going to focus all their attacks on the final. The girls kept me safe all day and supported me, that was very nice, a great job from them. I think we lost a little bit of control in the final, not really having the numbers in the important moment,” Bredewold thanked her teammates.
Having let Włodarczyk and Van Anrooij go on the last climb, that crested 5.5km from the finish, the group with Bredewold faced a fast chase in order to get back within striking distance.
In the end, Bredewold started to sprint very early on the finishing straight and did pass Van Anrooij but lacked a few metres to Włodarczyk.
“I knew if I started my sprint directly, I might catch them with the headwind, it was a 350-metre sprint or something, it was pretty long. I’m disappointed to just come short, actually,” Bredewold said.
Bredewold extended her GC lead due to bonus seconds from her second-place finish and an intermediate sprint. She leads the general classification by 18 seconds to Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Premier Tech) and 19 seconds to Riejanne Markus (Lidl-Trek).
The overall victory will almost certainly come down to the Mendizorrotz climb in the last 15km of stage 3, though.
“It’s the same every year. It will be another really big fight tomorrow,” finished Bredewold.
