Marta Lach (Ceratizit-WNT) won the mass sprint on stage 2 of the Tour of Chongming Island with her teammates Mylène de Zoete and Kathrin Schweinberger rounding out the podium in second and third.
1-2-3: De Zoete, Lach, Schweinberger swept the podium (photo:24tocmi)
De Zoete stays in the yellow leader’s jersey, her teammate Lach takes the green points jersey, and Karolina Kumiega (UAE-ADQ) stays in the QOM polk-dot jersey, as does Sofie van Rooijen (VolkerWessels) in the white jersey for best young rider.
Sofie van Rooijen, Mylène de Zoete, Marta Lach, Karolina Kumiega (photo:24tocmi)
RIDER REACTIONS
Marta Lach: “We did amazing the whole race, Laura [Asencio] and Marta [Jaskulska] were chasing all the breakaways. For the final, they and Sandra [Alonso] did a perfect lead-out for us until the last 400 meters. Sandra did a super-long lead-out, then Kathrin did an amazing long sprint.”
“It’s very special for me and for the whole team, how we work together, it was just perfect.”
HOW IT HAPPENED
The 129km stage was again a flat profile providing little chance of anyone getting away from the peloton. However, that didn’t stop China Liv Pro Cycling teammates Lu Siying and Hao Zhang from trying with less than 40km to go. Striking out separately, Siying had the largest gap on the peloton, over half a minute, with her teammate trailing 18 seconds behind her. But eventually the peloton reeled them in with 30km remaining.
Lu Sying (China Liv Cycling) had the largest gap of any breakaway – 38 seconds (photo:24tocmi)
The biggest threat came with around 20km to go, when Aurela Nerlo (Winspace) attacked and grew a gap to half a minute.
At the 5km mark, Nerlo still had twenty seconds and looked strong, but with less than 4km to go, the sprint teams came to the front of the peloton and upped the pace and Nerlo was caught.
Aurela Nerlo’s (Winspace) late attack was the greatest threat to sprint teams (photo: 24tocmi)
Human Powered Health then came to the front and set the pace, but lost their sprint train and were replaced by Roland who were bringing up their sprinter, Maggie Coles-Lyster. In the end they faded, but managed 6th with Silvia Zanardi.
With 2km to go, riders and teams were spread across the wide three-lane road, with half the peloton on the right side and half on the left side for a hundred meters before they came back together as one.
At the 1km to go mark, Ceratizit-WNT took the front position and held it through the last corner, while green jersey points leader, Tereza Neumanova (UAE-ADQ), lost her leadout from teammate Eleonora Gasparrini.
In the final 500 meters, Neumanova was able to get back on Gasparrini’s wheel and looked to be positioned well as Gasparrini began her leadout. But through the middle came Schweinberger with her Ceratizit-WNT teammates glued to her wheel and Neumanova lost all momentum, managing only 9th place in the end, with Ceratizit-WNT sweeping the podium, 1-2-3.
RESULTS
Stage 2: Changxing Island Country Park > Chongming New City Park (129km)