Setmana Ciclista Valenciana: Annemiek van Vleuten takes stage 1 victory after crashing on final descent

Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) secured a solo victory in the opening stage at Setmana Ciclista Valenciana on Thursday. The European Champion attacked over the final climb, a despite crashing on the descent, she crossed the finish line alone to take the stage win and the first leader's jersey in the four-day event.

She crossed the line 2:06 ahead of chaser Mavi Garcia (Ale BTC Ljublana) and 2:21 ahead of the next group sprint won by her Movistar teammate Katrine Aalerud.

"We wanted to play it really open at this race, because I didn't want to put myself on too much pressure. It was all about the team, not going with me to chase the leader's jersey from day one - and it won't be our priority to defend it," Van Vleuten said in a statement following the race"

"It's more about putting on a great show and playing for stages with other girls. Obviously, the rest is not so close now, we've got some gap to play with and Katrine has also shown great form with that third place, so I think we can play that game with other teammates."

How it unfolded

The opening stage offered a 125km race between Barxeta and Gandia. There were four categorised climbs at Alto Barxeta (10.8km), Alto Serra Grossa (65km), Alto Barxeta (98.6km) and then Alto Barx (111km), followed by a descent and then a flat 3km to the finish line in Gandia. 

A two-rider breakaway cleared the field over the Alto Barxeta with Omer Shapira (Canyon-SRAM) and Heidi Franz (Rally Cycling) that built a lead out to 1:30 on the main peloton. Their gap increased to 2:40 minutes after the first hour of racing, while Team BikeExchange and Movistar set a quick pace behind them.

Shapira rode away from Franz over the Alto Serra Grossa at the 65km mark, and built a solo lead out to 2:30 ahead of the field.

Eight chasers emerged behind that initially included Lisa Klein (Canyon-SRAM), Urska Žigart (Team Bike Exchange), Alicia Gonzalez (Movistar) and Krista Doebel-Hickok (Rally Cycling), later joined by Rasa Leleivytė (Aromitalia-Basso-Viano), Anastasiia Chursina (Ale BTC Ljubljana) and Giorgia Vettorello (Top Girls Fassa Bortolo).

Shapira kept her lead over the Alto Barxeta with 26km to go, but she was soon caught and passed by late-race attackers Van Vleuten and Mavi Garcia (Ale BTC Ljublana).

"Paula Patiño set up a super good attack - she actually ended up setting my own attack, because I wanted to work for Katrine, and I picked the pace for that, but I was a little bit too fast and she didn't tell me to slow down. We need to work a little bit on the communications side of things, since our plan was to set Katrine up for her to go. In the end, I went, I continued with Mavi, and with 1km to go I went on my own," Van Vleuten explained the team tactics.

Van Vleuten made her solo bid for victory, and with 15km to go, held a sizable lead on what was left of the peloton over the top of the final ascent of the stage - Alto Barx.

Although Van Vleuten crashed on the final descent, after a quick bike change, she was back up and racing, and crossed the line with a solo victory and the overall race lead. However, she maintains that the race is still wide open and the team objective is to give opportunities to her teammates.

"Our goal here remains giving everyone an opportunity, that's the objective. Even on the sprint stages - I'm really keen to do the leadout for our fast riders. I don't want the stress to defend the jersey, the objective is to play the game for the team, defending here would need a lot of energy."