The South African’s win was built on an outstanding stage two victory where she beat Annemiek van Vleuten on the stage to the Thyon 2000 ski resort. There she put 26 seconds into the newly crowned world champion, bonus seconds meaning she took an overall lead of 30 seconds into Sunday’s closing day.
In the end, the SD Worx rider’s lead was never threatened, 24th place was more than adequate for the 36-year-old to take her first WorldTour stage race overall victory, the day after what was surprisingly her first top-tier race win.
Though behind Moolman-Pasio in the chaos of a bunch sprint, Van Vleuten maintained her second place on general classification, with Elisa Longo-Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) one place further back.
The stage was won by Polish woman Marta Lach, the Ceratizit-WNT rider winning a bunch sprint on the shores of Lake Geneva, in Switzerland’s French-speaking region’s largest city. Lach is often seen in breakaways and Sunday’s win was the former national champion’s first WorldTour race win.
It was close though, with Tamara Dronova (Roland-Cogeas-Edelweiss) bagging the Swiss team’s best top-tier result of the year in second by a fraction, and Arlenis Sierra (Movistar) third.
How it unfolded
The final stage of the first ever edition of the Tour de Romandie Feminin headed to Fribourg - one Switzerland’s few cantons which speak both French and German. The race started in the capital, Canton’s eponymously named biggest city, before heading southwest, towards Lake Geneva, eventually finishing in the city of the same name, some 147.6km later.
The stage was, without doubt, the easiest of the race’s three. But it was by no means a café ride, with 1,900m of climbing, one second category and one third category climb along a distinctly lumpy course.
After nine kilometres of neutralised roll-out, the race finally got underway with attacks heading up the road almost instantly, Team DSM’s Elise Uijen initially looking for a second day in the break. The young Dutch rider was soon caught and the race continued with a number of tentative efforts to get away proving unsuccessful.
The day’s second category climb to Villars saw some riders drifting off the back, but with the climb and over 40km behind them, Ella Harris (Canyon-SRAM) and Quinty Ton (Liv-Xstra) got away, quickly building a substantial advantage, while the SDWorx squad of overall leader Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio led the following bunch.
As the kilometres wore on the leading duo’s gap grew to over six minutes, a lead not often seen in women’s racing, while other teams helped out on the front of the bunch. Only with around 50km remaining did the peloton begin any sort of concerted effort to chase the leaders down, Movistar lending a hand in support of stage one winner Arlenis Sierra.
Under this pressure, the peloton’s deficit began to tumble, and by the time the race entered its final 40km the gap was down to only 3.30. However, with Sierra struggling on the climb ahead of the final classified ascent, Movistar shrank away, BikeExchange-Jayco and Canyon-SRAM taking over.
It only took another seven kilometres for the bunch to take the next minute from the breakaway, and when the gap hit only one minute 124km from the line the breakaway’s fate was sealed. The peloton, weren’t keen to bring the leaders to heel, though, keeping them at arm’s length for a long while.
With UAE Team ADQ on the front in the form of an industrious turn from Sophie Wright, they chipped away gradually, Van Vleuten showing the rainbow jersey on the front too. And only with 1,900m remaining were Harris and Ton caught for the race to finish in a bunch kick.
