Vos wins Women's Tour de Yorkshire

Marianne Vos (CCC-Liv) won the Women's Tour de Yorkshire after she won the final stage in Scarborough. The Dutchwoman beat Mavi Garcia (Movistar) and Soraya Paladin (Ale Cipollini) in a three-up sprint at the end of a windswept stage.

Vos was present in the key moves on a stage that was battered by strong winds, hail and rain. She matched Paladin on the final climb when the Ale Cipollini rider clipped off the front and the duo caught Garcia who had attacked from almost 60km out. Vos launched a stinging attack with 28km to go but was forced to wait for the chasing pair and the three riders shared the workload as they established a sizeable gap on the remnants of the peloton in the closing stages.

Vos, who had taken bonus seconds on stage 1, knew that in order to win the overall title she needed to win stage 2 and her sprint was more than good enough to hold off Garcia and Paladin. The top three at the finish in Scarborough took the final three positions in the overall standings, while Christine Majerus (Boels - Dolmans Cycling Team) won the bunch sprint for fourth ahead of Amanda Spratt. Majerus finished fourth on GC.

“It was a crazy day. There were a lot of climbs and many attacks. We had to endure a lot and I actually don’t know how I ended up in the front in the end. I was trying to go with the good moves and when I went with Paladin to the leader Garcia we knew that we had a chance if we just kept going. It’s a great win,” Vos said at the finish.

“I have to watch it back to see what happened because there were so many things that happened all day. There were strong winds and I had to stay at the front. There were a lot of attacks and it was a strong group that went earlier in the race when Anna went solo. That’s a dangerous attack but then we came back, there were more attacks, and over the last two climbs we had gaps and on the final climb I could follow Paladin and in the final there were three of us.”

There was a brief pause in the race action when the stage had to be neutralized due to an oil spill on the road but the riders were soon back at race speed.

World champion Anna van der Breggen kicked off the action with a stinging attack at 70km to go, and from then on the race was virtually uncontrollable with riders attacking and dropping back at a constant rate. Vos, Paladin, Lizzie Deignan, Annemiek van Vleuten and Anna Henderson joined Van der Breggen out front.

When Garcia attacked with roughly 60km to go she quickly established a buffer over the chase and as she crested the final climb of the Cote de Ugglebarnby she had established a lead of around 30 seconds. Padelin and Vos gave chase and managed to catch the Movistar leader over the top of the climb as the rest of the Deignan group was swallowed up.

With 28km to go, Vos attacked in a bid to soften up her rivals but Padelin and Garcia worked to bring back the CCC rider and with 24km to go the trio began to collaborate.

“After such a day you don’t know how the sprint is going to be,” Vos said after the race.

“I wasn’t really sure. The only thing I was sure of was that we were going to stay away. I was still a little bit nervous.”

After her win in the Trofeo Alfredo Binda in March, Vos went into the Ardennes Classics as a hot favourite. She was third in Amstel Gold Race, fourth in Fleche Wallonne but slightly off the pace in Liege-Bastogne-Liege. Her win in Yorkshire may not rank as a Classic or a WorldTour race but it was still the ideal manner in which to close out her spring campaign.

“Of course I’m very happy to win. The spring has been good, and I was happy with Amstel, was fourth in Fleche and just not there in Liege. So I’m very happy to end the spring with this win. I just had to focus on what I had to do in the sprint.”

Full results

Stage 2 points classification

Stage 2 mountain classification

Final general classification

Final points classification

Final mountain classification