Mischa Bredewold (SD Worx-Protime) repeated her success from stage 1 of the Itzulia Women, sprinting to victory on stage 2 while wearing the yellow jersey. Liane Lippert (Movistar) finished second while Soraya Paladin (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) took third place.
The final was an edge-of-the-seat affair as a late breakaway of Silke Smulders (Liv-AlUla-Jayco), Mareille Meijering (Movistar), and Rosita Reijnhout (Visma-Lease a Bike) almost held off the peloton, only being caught 200 metres from the finish.
With her stage victory, Bredewold keeps the yellow jersey going into the final stage on Sunday.
“I still feel I’m a little bit in a different world because, woah, it was a very hard stage, very hard sprint. I can only say thank you to my team, Miki [Mikayla Harvey] and Steffi [Häberlin] today, of course Marie [Schreiber] and Marta [Lach] in the beginning, I am speechless, actually. They did such an incredible job. I owe everything to them,” said the stage winner.
"It’s not nice for [Anna] herself to crash out like this, and secondly, for the team, it’s not nice, she is such a strong, class rider that you’re definitely missing her on stages like this," Bredewold said of the stage. "Steffi and I both had a hard time on the second climb, yesterday felt a bit better than today, to be honest, but luckily we came back, and then it was just full gas, working, jumping, all the time."
With two stage victories under her belt – just like in 2024 – Bredewold is looking forward to stage 3 but acknowledged that it would be a challenge to win that one as well.
"It’s definitely going to be the hardest stage. I mean, obviously we are going to try, that’s not a secret, but it will be very, very hard. There are a few girls who are going incredibly strong on the climbs, so I’m going to need an extremely good day tomorrow to have a chance, so we’ll see. It will be up to fate, I guess," she finished.
How it unfolded
The scenic early kilometres of stage 2 of Itzulia Women 2025 (Image credit: Getty Images)
The 116km stage started in Ugao-Miraballes and included four classified climbs plus several other uncategorised ascents, but the final 20km to the finish in Igorre, the centre of Basque cyclo-cross.
Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) launched an attack on the second climb of the day to Lamindao, cresting the climb at the front of a small group that also included Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto), Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck), Mavi García (Liv-AlUla-Jayco), and Amanda Spratt (Lidl-Trek).
More riders came back on the descent, forming a front group of around 25 riders that also included Bredewold. Vollering was dropped from the group with a puncture but quickly came back after a bike change, and eventually the group grew further to a peloton of 60 riders.
About 50km from the finish, Julie Van de Velde (AG Insurance-Soudal) went on a solo breakaway. Marta Jaskulska (Ceratizit) tried to bridge to the Belgian, but never made it across and was caught again on the day’s last classified climb to Arrieta. Van de Velde won the Gerekiz and Arrieta mountain sprints but fell one point short of taking over the polka-dot jersey which remains on the shoulders of Morgane Coston (Roland).
The race's late breakaway which almost made it (Image credit: Getty Images)
Going into the last 30km, Van de Velde was only 30 seconds ahead of the peloton, prompting first Dilyxine Miermont (Ceratizit) and then Mijntje Geurts (Visma-Lease a Bike) to bridge across. When Smulders and Paula Patiño (Movistar) also jumped across the gap with 14km to go, quickly followed by Spratt, it fell to Bredewold herself to neutralise the move.
Smulders attacked again right away, getting a small gap, and Meijering and Reijnhout went after her, reaching the front 11.5km from the finish.
The three riders’ advantage was never bigger than 20 seconds, but they held a small gap all the way to the final kilometre. There, Reijnhout took the lead but sat up when Meijering made a last all-or-nothing acceleration into the roundabout with 600 metres to go.
The peloton was close behind, though, and when Bredewold reached Meijering and Smulders at the 200-metre mark, the breakaway was over, and the GC leader sprinted to another stage win.
Lukas Knöfler started working in cycling communications in 2013 and has seen the inside of the scene from many angles. Having worked as press officer for teams and races and written for several online and print publications, he has been Cyclingnews’ Women’s WorldTour correspondent since 2018.
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