The Italian national champion positioned herself on the back of rival UAE Team ADQ’s lead-out and then launched her winning sprint out of the final round-about to take the stage 2 win and extend her lead in the overall classification.
Lotta Henttala (AG Insurance-Soudal-QuickStep) finished second to Balsamo for the second day in a row, with the USA's Megan Jastrab (Team DSM) taking third place in Vila-Real.
Balsamo leads the overall classification as the race heads into the stage 3 mountainous 132km from Agost to Altea on Saturday.
“I’m very happy. Today was a hard one but my team did a good job. It was a good win for me,” Balsamo said.
“It wasn’t easy, with many climbs at the beginning, but in the end, my team did a good job. I had a perfect lead-out. The sprint is never easy, but it was a good win, and we are satisfied.”
“Tomorrow will be the queen stage for our two climbers, who are strong on our team here, and they will have a lot of fun. For me, not a lot but I will survive.
The second stage at the Setana Valenciana was a hilly 116 km route from Borriana to Vila-Real. The peloton tackled three back-to-back climbs over Alto de Marianet (3.3km at 5.5%), Alto de Eslida (6km à 4.5%), and Alto de Ahín (4.1km à 4.4%) before an undulating 60km to the finish in Vila-Real.
Cécile Lejeune (Massi-Tactic Women Team) and Giorgia Vettorello (Bepink) initiated the day’s first breakaway that saw Lejeune take the full points over the top of the Marianet ascent. However, the move was short-lived, with both riders caught by the field.
The peloton thinned out over the following two ascents; Alto de Eslida, where Katia Ragusa (Liv Racing TeqFind) took the points, and Alto de Ahín, where Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal-QuickStep) took the points. Ragusa accumulated enough points to lead the mountain classification.
Quinty Ton (Liv Racing TeqFind) attacked along the descent with 40km to go and padded out her lead to 40 seconds. She was also swallowed up by the reduced field, lead by Jumbo-Visma, within 30km from Vila-Real.
Late-race attacks came from teams UAE Team ADQ, Liv Racing TeqFind, Ceratizit-WNT, and EF Education-TIBCO-SVB riders, but the field was back together with 18 km to go.
On the long, slightly downhill run-in to the finish line, teams AG Insurance-Soudal-QuickStep, Jumbo-Visma, and Trek-Segafredo, set up their early lead-out trains for their respective sprinters Henttala, Coryn Labecki and Balsamo.
Although Jumbo-Visma and AG Insurance-Soudal QuickStep were the two most dominant lead-out teams racing into the final 5km, other teams tried to move up, including EF Education-TIBCO-SVB and UAE Team ADQ and Uno-X.
UAE Team ADQ led with two riders into the last roundabout, but their sprinter Eleonora Camilla Gasparrini was positioned too far back. Balsamo was the rider directly on their wheels, wearing the bright orange leader’s jersey.
She kicked hard and got a gap with 100 metres to go and so and comfortably secured the stage victory for the second day in a row.
Kirsten Frattini is the Deputy Editor of Cyclingnews, overseeing the global racing content plan.
Kirsten has a background in Kinesiology and Health Science. She has been involved in cycling from the community and grassroots level to professional cycling's biggest races, reporting on the WorldTour, Spring Classics, Tours de France, World Championships and Olympic Games.
She began her sports journalism career with Cyclingnews as a North American Correspondent in 2006. In 2018, Kirsten became Women's Editor – overseeing the content strategy, race coverage and growth of women's professional cycling – before becoming Deputy Editor in 2023.
