Rivera sprints to RideLondon Classique victory

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Coryn Rivera (Team Sunweb) picked up her fourth WorldTour win of the 2017 season Saturday at the RideLondon Classique, sprinting to a narrow victory in the British capital.

The peloton pushed through driving rain on the urban circuit to set up a bunch kick on the Mall. Canyon-SRAM's Lisa Brennauer and Cervelo-Bigla's Lotta Lepistö battled at the head of the sprint to lead into the final hundred metres, but Rivera surged past on their right and pipped Lepistö for the win. Brennauer settled for third.

"I'm absolutely elated," said Rivera in a post-race interview on BBC Sport. "It's crazy. It's raining. It's not the best conditions, but when there's a goal in front of you, you've got to commit to get after it. It was a crazy, chaotic finish with a lot of elbows and everything."

The peloton largely stayed together throughout the 66-kilometre race in the British capital. Claudia Koster (VeloConcept) launched the first attack in lap two of the 12-lap race, but the attempt was neutralised quickly. A handful of escape attempts followed but none had staying power, and the race proved more fast and strung out than attacking and animated.

"[In the rain], I think everyone rides a bit different, a bit faster average speed and a bit more careful through the corners," said Rivera. "Everyone is a little more cautious. It makes a greater margin for error, but you have to deal with it and everybody has to deal with it. It's a challenge for everyone.

"There were a lot sprinters here," said world champion Amalie Dideriksen, who sprinted in for seventh place. "Nearly every team came with a sprint, and when it's a criterium the speed is really high because everyone wants to ride the front to save energy in the corners. It gets really hard to get away and even harder to stay away. No one team had to take control because the nature of the race controlled it automatically."

Three intermediate sprints on laps three, six and nine provided a bit of drama with newly crowned British criterium champion Katie Archibald (Team WNT) successfully challenging Leah Kirchmann (Sunweb) on the first sprint. Luxembourgish champion Christine Majerus pipped Kirchmann on the line at the mid-point of the race. It was a Boels-Dolmans on one-two on sprint three with Dideriksen first across the line ahead of Majerus. Kirchmann came third, but the total through the series of sprints gave her enough points to win the Continental Tyre Sprint Competition.

The high pace and the disruption in tempo due to intermediate sprints did damage at the back of the peloton with a number of riders losing contact, but the front of the peloton was largely a controlled affair with Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (Cervelo-Bigla) the most frequent figure on the front in the second half of the race.

Lauren Stephens (Team TIBCO-SVB) led the peloton over the penultimate passage of the start/finish line on The Mall, up Constitution Hill and past Buckingham Palace before Canyon-SRAM took over with Alexis Ryan, Trixi Worrack and Brennauer. The trio was lining things up for Hannah Barnes, who won a Giro Rosa stage earlier this month, but the Briton was unable to make her way onto her team's train.

Lepistö gained several spots with a bold move through the inside of the final corner that came 500 metres from the finish line. Majerus surged forward beyond the corner with Dideriksen on her wheel but was blocked by Worrack pulling off for Brennauer, who opened the sprint.

Lepistö closed quickly on the left to take the lead into the final hundred metres. Rivera closed even faster on the right, surging past moments before the line to take the win.

"I knew I was in the right place, and I just had to time my sprint correctly," said Rivera. "It's a very long sprint. You see it for awhile. It's a little deceptive, but I went at the right time apparently – and pulled it off."

Along with UCI Women's WorldTour points and another accolade to add her rapidly growing palmares, Rivera earned women's cycling largest prize purse. The race awards the winner €25,000 – an amount that is more than a large portion of the field's salary and equal to the prize awarded to the winner of the men's race on Sunday.

"I'm really excited to be here, really excited that the race understands that we race just as hard, just as crazy as the men," said Rivera. "It's special to me that they respect that. To win here, it's also my first time racing here, it's pretty special."

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