Spanish Road Championships: Sara Martín claims first national title in two-up sprint against Mavi García

Climber Sara Martín (Movistar) sprinted to her first-ever national title in the Spanish road championships on Sunday, beating five-time winner Mavi García (Liv AlUla Jayco) in a two-up sprint to the line in Granada.

Defending champion Usoa Ostolaza (Laboral Kutxa Fundación) sprinted to third from a three-rider chasing group behind, after Martín and García attacked in the final 10km of a hilly parcours in southern Spain.

The under-23 title went to Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ Development) after a long solo chase that never saw her catch the main groups, but she adds the U23 road title to the TT title she took earlier in the week.

It was a tough 121km route in the Granadan hills, with the main action in the women's road race kicking off in the final 60km after a gradual whittling down process.

Only a dozen or so riders were still in contention with 60km to go, with small groups breaking apart.

With 48km to go, Ane Santesteban (Laboral Kutxa Fundación) attacked solo, and for a long time it looked like she might be on the way to victory, but she slid out on a corner with 15km to go, and with only a small gap, the chasing group containing Martín, García, Ostolaza and Mireia Benito (AG Insurance-Soudal) came past her before she remounted her bike.

Santesteban did get back into the group, and she and Ostolaza attempted some tag-team attacks, but the move that stuck was when Martín and García attacked on a small rise with 8km to go.

Santesteban tried to help her teammate in the chase, but soon dropped away. With little cooperation from Benito, the 2024 champion, Ostolaza struggled to make any inroads into the strong Martín and García group, whose gap only increased towards the finish.

It was to be a sprint between non-sprinters in Granada, and Martín led it out early, but ultimately that was enough to take the win as García just lacked the speed to take a sixth national title.

Ostolaza outsprinted Benito for third, whilst Santesteban came back for fifth after the crash ended her chances of winning.

Behind Blasi in sixth, the next group finished six and a half minutes down on the leader, exemplifying how much the race split up on a difficult course.

Results

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