Vos wins Ladies Tour of Norway

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Marianne Vos (CCC-Liv) has repeated last year's success at the Ladies Tour of Norway, winning three consecutive stages and the race overall again. On the final stage from the Svinesund bridge to Halden, Vos opened her sprint early and took the lead, winning stage 4 ahead of Marta Bastianelli (Team Virtu Cycling) and Ilaria Sanguineti (Valcar Cylance).

By winning the final stage in the yellow jersey, Vos obviously also is the overall race winner, 29 seconds ahead of Coryn Rivera (Team Sunweb) and 41 seconds ahead of Leah Kirchmann (Team Sunweb). Additionally, Vos takes the lead in the UCI Women's WorldTour ranking.

"It was a long stage, but there was so much action that it was really fast," Vos said on the race podium. "First and foremost, it was about being safe in the general classification. But when we got to the final lap and I still was in a good position, we decided also to go for the sprint. The team did a perfect job all day to keep me fresh and safe, so I had something left in the tank and wanted to give my all on the finish."

How it happened

At 156.2 kilometres, stage 4 was the longest of the race. Starting at the Norwegian-Swedish border on the Svinesund bridge, the rolling parcours wound its way back and forth between the two countries, with two classified climbs, a seven-kilometre gravel section, and two intermediate sprints as well as a special border sprint at the final border crossing back into Norway where almost four laps of a technical circuit in Halden that included many turns and a short cobblestone section concluded the stage.

15 riders did not start or abandoned during the stage, feeling the effects of yesterday's crashes. At the first intermediate sprint, Emilie Moberg (Team Virtu Cycling) took full points, securing the green points jersey for herself. Soraya Paladin (Alé Cipollini) did the same on the first classified climb to win the polka-dot mountain jersey.

Ursa Pintar (BTC City Ljubljana) got away solo on the second classified climb after 60 km and held a lead of up to 1:10 minutes, but the Slovenian was reeled in with 70 km to go. Next to break away were Diana Peñuela (Alé Cipollini), Margarita Victoria Garcia (Movistar Team), and Silvia Pollicini (Valcar Cylance). This trio was 1:40 minutes ahead at the special border sprint with 55 km to go, won by Garcia. Parkhotel Valkenburg of stage 1 winner Lorena Wiebes closed the gap to less than a minute at the 40-kilometre mark, and ten kilometres later the breakaway was reeled in.

The peloton was split on the climb to Fredriksten Fortress just before entering the five-kilometre finishing circuit. Moniek Tenniglo (Mitchelton-Scott) sneaked away on the descent and built an advantage of up to 18 seconds. In the peloton behind, there were several attempts to bridge to the front, but nobody could get away.

Eventually, Tenniglo faltered and was caught just before the cobble section on the penultimate lap, with 7.5 km left to race. Her teammate Sarah Roy counterattacked and had a five-second lead starting the final lap, but she was also reeled in with two kilometres to go, setting things up for a sprint finish.

In a chaotic final kilometre, Vos jumped 300 metres from the line, coming around Wiebes and Rivera on the left side of the road to win her third consecutive stage and the general classification. Wiebes won the white jersey for the best U23 rider and also took the lead in the Women's WorldTour U23 ranking. Susanne Andersen (Team Sunweb) was the best Norwegian rider.

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