Elisa Balsamo blasts to stage 1 victory at Setmana Valenciana

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Elisa Balsamo (Trek-Segafredo) won the sprint to take stage 1 of the Setmana Ciclista-Volta Comunitat Valenciana Fèmines. It was just two days after signing a new contract until 2026 with the US-based Women’s WorldTour team.

She eased to the line in Sagunt a clear bike length ahead of Lotta Henttala (AG Insurance-Soudal QuickStep) in second and Coryn Labecki (Jumbo-Visma) in third.

Balsamo swaps her Italian national champion's jersey for the leader’s orange jersey ahead of stage two.

She repeated her victory on stage 1 of this race from last year in similar fashion, in this her 20th professional career victory.

"The final was crazy but Yaya [Llaria Sanguineti] was really amazing, it was just super fun working again with her. This win means a lot for me," Balsamo said once she had time to assess her victory. 

"It’s always difficult during a race to find the good timing and be in the right place at the right moment for a chaotic sprint finish like this one, but yesterday we saw with Inna [Teutenberg, team director] the last KM so that today we were prepared for the finish.

"I was a little bit scared because you never know how your condition will be at the start of the season. I was coming from the European track championships so it was quite a lot of time without the road bike."

With 32km to go, 21-year-old Caroline Andersson (Liv Racing TeqFind) attacked from the peloton, and she quickly pushed the gap to 35 seconds.

Inside 15km to go, EF Education-TIBCO-SVB, DAS-Handsling and Trek-Segafredo grouped together at the front to help close the now 20-second gap to Andersson. The solo charge was caught in the closing kilometres and in the final stretch of 200 metres Llaria Sanguineti launched her teammate Balsamo to the win.  

How it unfolded

The first stage of the now-2.Pro level Setmana Ciclista-Volta Comunitat Valenciana Fèmines saw the riders travel 119km starting from Valencia. They would face one categorised climb and then complete two laps of a circuit, with intermediate sprints on each completion, before the complicated run-in to the line in Sagunt.

The opening 20km were relatively calm in the peloton before they reached the Category 2 Alto de l'Oronet (6.1km at 4.3%), atop which Katia Ragusa (Liv Racing TeqFind) won the QOM sprint and confirmed her spot on the podium at the end of the day’s racing.

She took the maximum six points ahead of Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal Quick-Step), Morgane Coston (Cofidis) and Ashleigh Moolman Pasio (AG Insurance-Soudal Quick-Step), on debut for her new team after choosing not to retire at the end of 2022.

Matilde Vitillo (Bepink) spent some time off the front of the bunch and took the first intermediate sprint collecting five points and three bonus seconds in the process, ahead of Olivia Baril (UAE Team ADQ) and Coryn Labecki (Jumbo-Visma).

There was a small crash involving Francesca Barale (Team DSM) and Cofidis teammates Coston and Josie Talbot but they were not affected too adversely. 

The second intermediate sprint was won by Olivia Baril (UAE Team ADQ) ahead of Silvia Zanardi (Bepink) and Floortje Mackaij (Movistar), who today rode for the Spanish team with Dutch compatriot and World Champion Annemiek van Vleuten for the first time.

With five bonus seconds collected across the two intermediate sprints, Baril was the virtual general classification leader on the road after 82.2km of racing.

Van Vleuten wore her rainbow bands for the first time in 2023 in this her final season after she won the women’s road race last September with a surprise final kilometre attack, despite breaking her elbow in the mixed relay team time trial three days prior.

She even took a turn on the front as the bunch tried to control a solo attack from Caroline Andersson (Liv Racing TeqFind) who jumped away with 32km left to ride.

We also got our first chance to see Olympic road race champion Anna Kiesenhofer, albeit off the back of the peloton for much of the day, for her new team Israel-Premier Tech-Roland, after she was left without a team for 2023 due to the collapse of the B&B Hotels project.

Andersson battled valiantly alone in the wind and her gap rose just north of a minute as the riders approached the final 20 kilometres but as teams such as EF Education-TIBCO-SVB and DAS-Handsling started pulling in the peloton, her advantage shrunk quickly.

The Swedish rider was absorbed back into the peloton with 12.8km left in the stage as the bunch started preparing for a bunch sprint into the headwind finish in Sagunt.

With six roundabouts to contend with in the final 3.2km, Trek Segafredo needed to get their lead out exactly right to ensure the day’s favourite Balsamo could get a clear run to the finish. As they rounded the final corner, it was her former Valcar-Travel & Service teammate Ilaria Sanguineti, who joined Trek-Segafredo this season, that led Balsamo out and delivered her perfectly for an easy first victory of the season.

Sanguineti sat up with her arms aloft as she watched her Italian compatriot ease to the line in the national champion’s jersey, which she will now swap out for the leader’s orange jersey.

Stage 2 sees the riders go 116km from Borriana to Vila-Real and may be another chance for Balsamo to sprint to the line if she can survive the three categorised climbs on the way to the finish.

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