Bronzini wins Madrid Challenge stage

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Giorgia Bronzini (Cylance) won stage 2 of the Madrid Challenge by La Vuelta. Part of a strong breakaway of nineteen riders that got away in the second half of the 100.3km race, and made it to the end, the former world champion outsprinted Sarah Roy (Mitchelton-Scott) and Charlotte Becker (Hitec Products-Birk Sport) to take the victory in her final race. Ellen van Dijk (Team Sunweb) won the race overall.

Stage 2 was held on the finishing circuit of the men's Vuelta a España in the centre of Madrid. The 5.9km circuit on the Paseo de Prado, Paseo de Recoletos, and Paseo de la Castellana boulevards would be raced 17 times. Intermediate sprints every second lap (except after lap 16) offered bonus seconds and sprint points.

The race started quietly, and there were no attacks before the first intermediate sprint. A group of four got away after that, but was reduced to only two by a crash, and the remaining duo were soon reeled in. Five laps into the race, a new break of five riders formed. Their advantage went up to 50 seconds, and they took the next two intermediate sprints before being caught on lap nine.

Rossella Ratto (Cylance) attacked at the start of the tenth lap. Numerous other riders bridged and eventually formed a large breakaway of nineteen riders. Their advantage quickly went to over a minute and stayed there for a long time. Most teams were represented up front and therefore not interested in chasing, and the break was large enough to share the workload.

Ellen van Dijk (Team Sunweb), Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Wiggle High5), and Ilaria Sanguineti (Valcar PBM) took points and bonus seconds at the remaining intermediate sprints, and with three laps left to race the break was still 45 seconds ahead despite the chasing efforts of Alé Cipollini.

Coralie Demay (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope) and Polish champion Malgorzata Jasinska (Movistar Team) attacked from the break and started the penultimate lap 24 seconds ahead of their erstwhile companions, the peloton led by Wiggle High5 was 48 seconds behind.

When the lead duo had been brought back with just over seven kilometres left, Olga Zabelinskaya (Cogeas-Mettler) pulled the re-united break single-handedly for over two kilometres. The gap was down to only 14 seconds at the 180-degree turn at the northern end of the circuit. Out of that turn, Sara Martín (Sopela Women's Team) went solo from the break, but she was quickly reeled in again by Zabelinskaya.

The peloton had not gotten any closer to the break at the southern 180-degree turn, and then Zabelinskaya went to the front again and kept the pace high on the final kilometre, with Giorgia Bronzini ready in her wheel.

Charlotte Becker opened up the sprint with 300 metres to go. Sarah Roy was quickly in the German's wheel, and Bronzini jumped onto the Australian's wheel. Roy came around Becker 150 metres from the line. In the last 100 metres, a gap opened between Becker and Roy for Bronzini to launch the final sprint of her cycling career and take the stage win.

Lorena Wiebes (Parkhotel Valkenburg) won the bunch sprint for 17th place thirteen seconds later. Having been part of the winning break, Van Dijk won the overall classification of the two-day race ahead of team mate Coryn Rivera in second place. Cordon-Ragot had collected enough bonus seconds to push overnight leader Leah Kirchmann (Team Sunweb) off the final podium, while Sanguineti won the points classification.

The 2018 UCI Women's WorldTour finishes with the Tour of Guangxi one-day race on 21 October.

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