Tour of Norway Women: Mie Bjørndal Ottestad grabs overall with bold solo victory on final stage

Mie Bjørndal Ottestad (Uno-X Mobility) used a solo breakaway to capture a signature victory on stage 2 of Tour of Norway Women, simultaneously netting the overall title on home soil. 

Clad in the colours of Norwegian national champion, Ottestad caught and passed lone attacker Daniek Hengeveld (Ceratizit Pro Cycling) with 22km to go and continued for a double celebration in the two-day race. 

Susanne Andersen was best in the bunch sprint, 50 seconds after her Uno-X teammate had crossed the line and thus took second place on the stage, ahead of Margot Vanpachtenbeke (VolkerWessels Women's Pro Cycling). 

Stage 1 winner and race leader Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal) finished in the chase group of 13 riders in sixth place, and relented the overall to Ottestad by 44 seconds. Lauren Dickson (Handsling Alba Development) was third overall, another five seconds back. 

The opening 12.9km let to the first of five ascents of the Grisbakken (300 metres at 9%), which was part of the 22-mile circuits around Stavanger for a total of 108 kilometres. A crash on the first lap separated the peloton into several groups, but the front two groups were back together for the second of the five circuits.

AG Insurance-Soudal set the pace over the second pass of the category 3 climb and 73km to go, with race leader Ghekiere the first over the top. Visma-Lease a Bike and Uno-X Mobility amped up the charge on the other side for the first intermediate sprint points, Uno'X's Andersen ahead of Visma's Eva Van Agt.

With 63km to go Maud Rijnbeek (VolkerWessles Cycling) went on a brief solo attack, but her surge was over 9km later. Hengeveld took over at the front, and soon had a 1:40 gap.

With 44km and two laps to go, Hengeveld's lead began to shrink, thanks to the duo of Viktória Chladoňova (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Ottestad, who had closed to just under one minute, Chladonová taking 2 bonus seconds and Ottestad 1.

The peloton began the penultimate lap 1:20 back and whittled the time back slowly.

With 25km to go, Ottestad was alone in the chase and had Hengeveld in her sights, making the catch for the final lap. She then powered away at the front of her home race, Hengeveld having no response. 

AG Insurance-Soudal drove the pace of the peloton for the race leader, focused on closing a 48-second gap to the lone leader, but they could not close down the move.

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