Longo Borghini wins on La Planche des Belles Filles

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Wiggle Honda continued its run of success in La Route de France, with Elisa Longo Boghini extending her overall race lead with a mountain top victory on La Planche des Belles Filles. The Italian came to the line 45 seconds ahead of American Amber Neben (BePink-La Classica) with Claudia Lichtenberg (Liv-Plantur) rounding out the top three on the stage and the overall classification.

"It was really, really nice because it's one hill that they are doing in the Tour de France; that the guys are doing," Longo Borghini said. "[Vincenzo] Nibali won here, so I'm really happy to get another Italian victory for my country.

"The team was really amazing today because they all brought me to the front for the whole day," she added. "We were really acting like a pro-team, and it was really nice."

Clocking in at just 87.4km, the stage from Vesoul was quick enough that no breakaway could go clear, but that all would change on the category 1 Col des Chevrères with 18km to go.

Longo Borghini's teammate Mayuko Hagiwara attacked on the climb, setting up the Italian for her attack. "It was about 500 metres before the GPM, and I just wanted to pace a bit more because I thought that [Inpa-Sottoli's Tetiana] Riabchenko was about to sprint for the GPM, so I just kept speeding up and I suddenly felt myself alone. I just looked behind me and there was nobody - there was a bit of a gap - so I just kept going.

"I did the descent, and the part in between the two climbs, really fast. After two kilometres of la Planche des Belles Filles I saw that I had a big gap, so I just controlled. I didn't go full gas because for me it made no sense. I'm here to prepare for the second part of the season, so I need to train, and I don't want to just go crazy deep."

Her effort was enough to hold off Neben and extend her race lead from just seconds to more than a minute over Neben, in addition to padding her lead in the mountains classification. The final stage on Saturday is four laps of a 26km circuit with one climb per loop.

"For sure tomorrow we have to pay attention to the other teams because it is a tough race and rain is predicted," she said. "We can always get in trouble, just because it is the last day it doesn't mean it will go smooth. I think it will be completely the opposite, and they will start attacking us, so we really need to be focused and try to race as a team; as we have the whole week long."

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