Van Vleuten wins Setmana Ciclista Valenciana

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Marta Bastianelli (UAE Team ADQ) claimed the sprint victory on the final stage of the Setmana Ciclista Valenciana, powering to the stage over world champion Elisa Balsamo (Trek-Segafredo) and Susanne Andersen (Uno-X).

Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar Team), who opened up a winning lead on Saturday's mountain stage, finished in the bunch to seal the overall victory.

The Dutch rider dedicated her victory to two people who were in her thoughts and written on her jersey.

"Our soigneur Gary Baños died one year ago today, so that's why I had Gary on one arm and then #StayStrongAmy on the other one, for Amy Pieters, who is still in hospital. I just wanted to think of both of them and dedicate my jersey to them," Van Vleuten said.

The win was also confirmation of her form after yet another comeback from injury. She crashed last October in Paris-Roubaix, fracturing her shoulder and pelvis.

"If you realize that it's only four-and-a-half months ago that I crashed so badly in Roubaix, and only left my crutches behind in mid December - to be able to already do this, it's so nice to start the season this way," Van Vleuten said. 

"It's also nice to take the pressure off my shoulders, to show that both myself and the team are back. It's also a Spanish race, which makes it for a bigger goal for the team."

The team, she said, were coming together nicely this year.

"I can see that the team is stepping up compared to last year. For some of the riders here, it was the first time defending a GC lead. I can see now that my teammates are getting more and more experienced, having won other similar races like Ardèche, so it's good to see that the team is more able to defend a jersey and know how to do it.

"It was super helpful to have all the team around me today. It makes easier to keep things under control in days like this one. We never panicked; we started riding immediately when Grace Brown left, kept it under two minutes and it was fine. It was really a team effort today."

The win was also a confirmation for the newest Women's WorldTeam, UAE Team ADQ and Bastianelli.

"I'm happy with this victory. It was also deserved by all my teammates who stayed close to me throughout the race and all raced with one goal," Bastianelli said.

The stage win was her second of the season and she said it proved her new team's abilities after some external doubts. "Somebody had said that we had won at Valencia a few weeks ago where there was nobody, today we showed that we can win even in the presence of the best teams," the Italian said after the stage.

"It was a challenging finale. After the climb we remained about thirty in front and for us it was an ideal race situation for the sprint. But then [Lorena] Wiebes came back and I had two strong sprinters to control for the sprint. At the end I decided to sprint on the wheel of Balsamo and and it turned out to be the right choice."

How it unfolded

The final stage of the "week of cycling" in Valencia got underway under sunny skies with riders facing a circuitous 118km from Sagunt to València with two intermediate sprints in the start town before riders headed out to the day's main difficulty, the category 2 Alto de l'Oronet, cresting at 30km and heading downhill on to the finish.

Three riders attacked in the early kilometres, with Teuntje Beekhuis (Jumbo-Visma), Emma Langley (EF Education-TIBCO-SVB) and Mieke Kröger (Human Powered Health) making the first breakaway but they were brought back before the first sprint at kilometre 29.

Karlijn Swinkels (Jumbo-Visma) claimed the sprint in Sagunt before a second attack forged ahead. This one was two riders: Lija Laizane (Eneicat-RBH Global) and Danielle Shrosbree (CAMS-Basso), who were joined by Grace Brown (FDJ-Nouvelle Aquitaine-Futuroscope) to make a more lasting move.

Laizane led the breakaway through the second intermediate sprint but did not overtake Swinkels for the sprint classification. As the road began to tilt up, Shrosbree lost touch with the leaders who started up the Alto de l'Oronet with a minute on the peloton. With Brown setting a relentless pace, Laizane lost contact, too, and was caught by the peloton.

Brown continued on, leading over the summit with more than a minute on Erica Magnaldi and Sofia Bertizzolo (UAE Team ADQ) who crested the climb ahead of race leader Van Vleuten, sealing the mountains classification for Magnaldi.

The fractured peloton came mostly back together on the long descent and began their pursuit of Brown in earnest.

With 10km to go, Brown had only a dozen seconds left of her once generous advantage and two kilometres later the Australian was swept up by the peloton led by Alice Maria Arzuffi (Valcar).

Canyon-Sram, Trek-Segafredo and Valcar led the compact peloton into the final kilometres, with Arzuffi, Shirin van Anrooij and Pauliena Rooijakkers setting the pace for their sprinters.

Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) hit out early for her teammate Balsamo, but Bastianelli powered past to the victory. Van Vleuten came across in the bunch to win the overall.