Volta a Catalunya Femenina: Elise Chabbey wins opening stage with late attack from three-rider breakaway

Elise Chabbey made a perfectly-timed late-race attack on a three-way breakaway to secure a solo victory and the first leader's jersey on the opening stage at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya Femenina. 

It was a one-two finish for FDJ-SUEZ as Demi Vollering out-sprinted Ane Santesteban (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi) for second place in Reus.

Chabbey now leads the overall GC by nice seconds ahead of Vollering and 13 seconds ahead of Santesteban, with stage 2 on Saturday bringing an uphill finish to favour her climbing ability.

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"I can't even find the words. For me, it means so much to win a bike race. I'm not a cyclist that wins a lot so this is really important for me. I am so happy," Chabbey said in a post-race interview about her victory.

"I have to thank the whole team, and Demi, because she was the strongest but it was the plan that I go a bit earlier and try to create a break, and she would jump and bridge and we would be together. It was perfect. In the end, she told me to attack and go for it. I'm so happy."

The opening stage at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya Femenina offered a hilly 114.4km from El Perello to Reus with three categorised ascents at Coll del Guix (14.6km at 3.2%), Coll de Porrera (3.3km at 6.8%) and Coll d'Alforia (5km at 4.6%), followed by mostly descending all the way into Reus.

The first separation from the peloton was by US rider Allison Mrugal (Cynisca Cycling) and South American Agua Maria Espinola (Team Farto-Kiroot), but went no farther than the 30 kilometres. With 50 kilometers to go to the finish, on the climb to the Coll de Porrera, a decisive move saw three riders escape.

The breakaway of three riders included Vollering, who had bridged across to her teammate Chabbey and Santesteban over the final ascent. The trio pushed their lead out to 1:45 minutes over a chasing 12 riders in the closing 30km of the race, that only continued to increase as they descended toward the finale.

A Visma-Lease a Bike quartet led the chase group having the most riders in the mix, but did not receive help from other teams Human Powered Health, Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto, VolkerWessels, Team Coop-Repsol and Eneicat-CMTeam.

The trio continued to push their lead out to more than two minutes in the final 14km as Vollering and Chabbey set a blistering pace, and Santesteban sitting on their wheels with no obligation to assist her FDJ-SUEZ rivals.

Chabbey made her winning move with 1.4km to go, forcing Santesteban to chase with Vollering on her wheel.

The Swiss rider opened her gap to 10 seconds in the final few hundred metres, and crossed the finish line with the victory.

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