Aviva Women's Tour: Vos wins stage 4 in Stoke-on-Trent

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Marianne Vos (Rabo-Liv) took a morale-boosting victory on what was a thrilling finale to the penultimate stage of the Aviva Women’s Tour. The image of the finishing stretch in the race’s road book belied what truly awaited the riders at the finish and it’s steepness surprised most. Vos had the measure of it, though, jumping in the final metres to take the win by a clear margin.

Leah Kirchmann (Liv Plantur) followed her over for second with Emma Johansson (Wiggle-High5) in third place. Race leader Lizzie Armitstead (Boels Dolmans) finished in sixth and extended her lead in the overall classification after taking bonus seconds in both intermediate sprints.

It had looked like it could be a repeat performance of stage 3 as Armitstead went away with Elisa Longo Borghini (Wiggle-High5) and Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (Cervelo-Bigla) on the second climb of the day. Already a commanding force, the trio were soon joined by Johansson at the head of the race.

Frustrated by the lack of work from the Wiggle-High5 pair, Armitstead began setting a blistering pace on the front before launching a speculative attack. Behind, the group had split up, but a set of 12 riders began to organise a chase, including Vos and Lisa Brennauer, and the advantage of the leaders never breached the 20-second mark.

Vos had lost Anna Van Der Breggen to a major crash with just under 30 kilometres remaining as they approached the first categorised climb, but Rabo Liv still had strength in numbers. They amassed at the front along with Canyon-SRAM and began pegging the gap back, which was little more than 10 seconds with 10 kilometres to go.

The four escapees were tantalisingly close to the line but with dissent in the ranks they couldn’t delay the inevitable, and the group was brought back with less than half a kilometre to the line.

Vos had to dig deep on the uphill run to the line in Stoke-on-Trent. She had been close on two stages already, finishing second on stage 1 and third on stage 2, and after missing the cut and losing time on Friday’s stage, she had all the fire and ammunition she needed in her arsenal. The bonus seconds on the line, and in the intermediate sprints, were enough to put her back into contention in the overall classification as she moved into fourth overall at 15 seconds.

The parcours of stage 4 of the Women’s Tour began innocently enough, but it had a sting in the tail with the two classified climbs packed into less than 10 kilometres of racing. Armitstead had missed out on wearing yellow after her stage win in 2015 due to a crash beyond the finish line, but she finally had her chance following her victory on day three.

A lengthy 10-kilometre neutral zone led the riders out of Nottingham before the flag finally dropped. The pace was high immediately, as the peloton tracked down any attempt at a breakaway. As the riders wound their way through the Derbyshire countryside, the peloton was almost in single file. There was bad luck for Boels Dolmans as stage 1 winner Christine Majerus came down heavily.

Emelia Fahlin (Ale Cipollini), who had been very active on stage 2, finally broke the deadlock. The Swedish rider slipped off the front after 63 kilometres of racing and with the feed zone only a further 10k down the road she was allowed to go. Fahlin’s chances of staying away never looked likely, and she was allowed to build a maximum advantage of 2:20 before the peloton began the chase.

The peloton took chunks out of her lead and with 29 kilometres to the line she was absorbed, moments after a major crash took out several riders. News would later filter through that while most had been able to re-mount and continue, Van Der Breggen would be ending her race right there.

Up front, the pack started to split over the second, harder, ascent of the day. As had happened the day before, Longo Borghini, Armitstead and Moolman-Pasio went clear with Johansson chasing on to join them. Attacks came from Armitstead and later Johansson but on this occasion, they were not able to hold off the Rabo Liv-led chase. Vos repaid the hard work of her teammates, delivering them their first victory of the race.

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