Nadia Gontova wins Redlands Classic women's overall as Mara Roldan takes stage 5

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Mara Roldan (Cynisca Cycling) outsprinted Jenaya Francis (TaG Cycling Race Team), who she had been riding the late break with, to take a second victory at the Redlands Bicycle Classic on Sunday's stage 5.  

Nadia Gontova (DNA Pro Cycling) finished safely in the chasing thinned-out peloton to secure the overall victory and the biggest win of her career.  

“I'm really stoked that we were able to pull it off,” said Gontova, who claimed the GC lead after winning stage 2 on Onyx Summit. 

“There were some moves that were definitely very threatening for the GC and my teammates did a really good job getting on the front, reeling it in, and setting pace. It was just really great teamwork.”

The Redlands Sunset Road Race is a notoriously difficult stage to control and Gontova’s DNA Cycling Team were put under pressure as soon as the field started the first of nine laps of the hilly 6.8-mile (11km) loop. 

Working for her Virginia's Blue Ridge TWENTY24 teammate Emma Langley, defending champion Emily Ehrlich upped the pace at the front, splintering the field on the climb while Alia Shafi (Fount Cycling), second on GC, was looking for opportunities to escape. Many riders could not follow the accelerations and dropped out of contention, leaving a group of around 25 riders at the front to battle for victory.

Two laps later, Langley and Shafi were off the front with Diana Peñuela (DNA Pro Cycling) tagging on to monitor the move which established a gap of 20 seconds before being reeled back. For a few seconds, Gontova was on the wrong side of a split in the peloton but she did not panic and moved back up and stayed in the small front group until the end.

Francis and Roldan attacked the final time around Sunset Loop and managed to hold off the chasing small group to fight for the stage win. 

Marlies Mejias (Virginia's Blue Ridge Twenty24) took the field sprint for third place, crossing the line 13 seconds after the race-deciding sprint in the 68.1-mile (110km) race.

In the general classification, Shafi held on to second place with a gap of 48 seconds after finishing in the lead group alongside Gontova. Roldan moved up to third overall, a further 34 seconds down.

“I died trying so I'm happy that we ended up getting second on GC. Obviously we hoped to have it today but DNA was too good. They beat us today,” Shafi said.

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