Tour of California Women's Race: Hall wins on Mt. Baldy

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Katie Hall (Boels Dolmans) won stage 2 of the Tour of California Women's Race. The defending champion climbed strongly on the slopes of Mount Baldy. Only her teammate in the yellow jersey, Anna van der Breggen, was able to keep up, and the two agreed to let Hall win the stage as Van der Breggen defended her GC lead, with Hall now second overall. A late surge by Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (CCC-Liv) brought the South African climber to third place on the stage and overall.

The second stage of the three-day race was the queen stage, with two big ascents during the 74 kilometres, with the road climbing almost continuously from the intermediate sprint after 30km. With the mountains looming in the distance, the peloton cruised along on the first part of the stage that started in Ontario. Several riders from Valcar Cylance tried to get a break going, but they did not succeed and eventually settled in the peloton.

The climb on the Glendora Mountain Road was dominated by Olga Zabelinskaya (Cogeas Mettler Look) who pulled on the front for most of the climb, reducing the peloton to less than 30 riders at the top. Liliana Moreno (Astana Women’s Team), in the polka-dot jersey, won the QOM to add more points to her tally.

Coryn Rivera (Team Sunweb) and Lisa Klein (Canyon-SRAM) briefly broke away on the rolling kilometres following the climb, and then it was Rivera and Trixi Worrack (Trek-Segafredo) who made a move on the unclassified climb to Sunset Peak. When they were brought back, Moolman-Pasio attacked with 15km to go, but she was quickly reeled in again.

Kathrin Hammes (WNT-Rotor) and Omer Shapira (Canyon-SRAM) attacked on the Glendora Ridge Road and were joined by Rivera on the descent towards Mount Baldy Village. They started the final climb with a 40-second advantage on the chasing group of favourites.

Israeli champion Shapira quickly left Hammes and Rivera behind and continued solo, climbing at a decent speed. A select chase group formed within 5km to go, including Hall, Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo), Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), and Moolman-Pasio. When Van der Breggen bridged to this group, her teammate Hall had already gone off in pursuit of Shapira, and Van der Breggen went after her.

Hall and Van der Breggen caught up with Shapira, and then left the Israeli champion behind two kilometres from the line. The Boels-Dolmans teammates did not attack each other on the final switchbacks, but rode to the finish together, and Van der Breggen yielded the stage win to Hall as she herself cemented her overall lead. Moolman-Pasio finished in third place, 33 seconds down. Clara Koppenburg (WNT-Rotor) was fourth, while Shapira managed to come home in fifth and was awarded the jersey of most courageous rider.

Van der Breggen now holds a 29-second lead over Hall in the general classification. She also leads the points classification, but the green jersey will be worn by Moolman-Pasio by proxy on stage 3. Hall takes over the QOM jersey from Moreno, and Juliette Labous (Team Sunweb) is the new leader in the youth classification. The race finishes on Saturday with a stage of 115.5km from Santa Clarita to Pasadena.

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