Vuelta a Burgos Feminas: Chursina wins solo on stage 2

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Anastasia Chursina (Alé BTC Ljubljana) has won stage 2 of the Vuelta a Burgos Feminas, taking the biggest victory of her career. The 26-year-old Russian was part of a break of three that got away just after the first classified climb of the day with 69 km to go and built an advantage of more than four minutes.

On the second classified climb cresting 22 km from the finish, Chursina dropped her companions Heidi Franz (Rally Cycling) and Antri Christoforou (Burgos Alimenta Women Cycling Sport), and although Franz returned on the descent, Chursina attacked again with 17.5 km to go and dropped Franz. 

The peloton had split into several groups on the climb that merged again on the run-in to the finish, and Alice Barnes (Canyon-SRAM) beat Amalie Dideriksen (Trek-Segafredo) in the sprint for second 1:11 minutes behind. Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM) takes over the purple jersey of the race leader from Grace Brown (Team BikeExchange) on stage placing countback.

“It was our plan before the stage to go into the breakaway. I attacked after just 30 kilometres and got those two girls with me. I saw how much time there was between us and the peloton and always tried to push, because it is better to be in front than behind,” Chursina laughed.

“In the final, I just did a TT. I was very motivated for this race, and now I am really happy. We have Mavi García for the general classification, she is from Spain and this is her race. Today was my day, but of course, tomorrow we will support her,” the stage winner finished.

How it unfolded

After an attack by Rachel Langdon (Instafund Racing) early on the 97-kilometre stage was brought back, Niamh Fisher-Black (Team SD Worx) won the first mountain sprint on the Alto de Bocos after 27 kilometres, and shortly afterwards the three-rider breakaway formed.

With the peloton uninterested on controlling the gap, Chursina, Franz, and Christoforou could increase their advantage on the undulating terrain, maxing out at 4:10 minutes around the 40km mark. As Chursina was only 1:43 minutes behind in the general classification, the peloton eventually did take up the chase, reducing it to under three minutes at the bottom of the Alto Retuerta.

On the climb, World Champion Anna van der Breggen (Team SD Worx) took the lead in the peloton and raised the pace. Together with Sabrina Stultiens (Liv Racing) crashing in a corner, this led to splits in the peloton, with a chase group of eight riders forming over the top of the climb.

Further up the road at 1:20 minutes, Chursina had dropped Franz and Christoforou shortly before the mountain sprint. Franz was second over the top of the climb, defending the red mountain jersey that she had been wearing in proxy for overall leader Brown. The US rider managed to return to the front on the descent, but Chursina attacked again to drop Franz.

The chase group behind grew bigger as more and more riders made their way back, but there was no agreement to chase down Chursina, whose advantage grew to almost two minutes again. At 11km from the line, Van der Breggen tried to attack from the group, but Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) shut down this attempt immediately.

Chursina took no risks on the wet roads in the final kilometres to win her first Women’s WorldTour stage; Franz and Christoforou were caught by the peloton that was led home by Barnes and Dideriksen.