Cédrine Kerbaol (CERATIZIT-WNT) soled to victory under extreme weather conditions at the Tre Valli Varesine Women’s Race (1.Pro) today in Varese, Italy. Silvia Persico (UAE/ADQ) was second, outsprinting chase companion Liane Lippert (Movistar) who took third.
Extreme wet weather forced the organizers to make some changes and reduce the length of the race by about 15 km, but it didn’t dampen any of the aggressive racing that took place from the start.
Silvia Persico, Cédrine Kerbaol, Liane Lippert (photo: Sprint Cycling/UAE)
Riders Reactions
Cédrine Kerbaol: “It wasn’t easy today. We had a lot of rain and cold all day, and it was a very eventful race. I felt good, though, and I knew I had to stay alert to get into the breakaway at the right time. When I was with Silvia Persico, I knew we could build a good margin.”
“I was a bit afraid of Persico. I expected her to attack, so I made my move first. Once I managed to drop her, I pushed hard all the way to the finish.”
Silvia Persico: “Today I felt really good, and I’m happy because it’s been a long time since I had such positive sensations. I joined the first breakaway, but we were caught before the final lap. Then I attacked again with Kerbaol on the descent, and we broke away together. Unfortunately, on the last climb, I was at my limit, and when she accelerated, I couldn’t stay with her”
“When Lippert arrived, I immediately jumped on her wheel and managed to secure this important second place. This was my last road race of the season, and I’ll wrap up my year next Sunday at the Gravel European Championships in Asiago.”
Liane Lippert: “I gave it everything to try to catch them, but with the conditions and how strong Cédrine was today, it just wasn’t possible. It was a tough race, but I’m pleased with my effort.”
Persico edges out Lippert for 2nd place (photo: Sprint Cycling/UAE)
How it happened
The usual attacks came early, but nothing stuck until 73 km to go when 7 riders got away: Ruth Edwards (Human Powered Health), Joscelin Lowden (Uno-X), Mareille Meijering (Movistar), Monica Trinca Colonel (Bepink-Bongioanni), Francesca Barale (dsm-firmenich PostNL), Flora Perkins (Fenix-Deceuninck), and Silvia Persico (UAE/ADQ).
This group of 7 forged a gap that grew to over a minute at one point, but mostly hovered at around 40-50 seconds for almost 50 km. With chasers in the peloton unable to make any progress in catching this breakaway, it appeared the race would be won by one of the seven riders in the break.
This all changed with around 24 km to go, when riders in the peloton began to attack and try to bridge up. Very quickly the gap came down and Liane Lippert (Movistar) was the first to bridge up. She was followed by eight more riders and the lead group on the road became 16.
Shortly after with about 18 km remaining, more riders from the peloton bridge up and the group grew to 20-25 riders.
Juliette Labous (dsm-firmenich PostNL) then went to the front and pushed the pace, followed by Julie Bego (Cofidis) who attacked and was able to create a small gap of 7 seconds. She was joined by Labous and Lippert and it looked like this trio might be the winning break, but they were caught by Kerbaol and Persico, who then made the decision to keep pushing on the descent.
With 12 km remaining, Kerbaol and Persico had created a gap of around 10 seconds with nine chasers behind.
Over the next 5 kilometers the two leaders increased their gap to 19 seconds, but were still fighting to hold off the nine chasers behind, who looked likely to catch them.
With less than 4 km remaining, the chasing group of nine started to lose momentum and Lippert attacked from this group and attempted to bridge up to the two leaders on her own. Shortly after, Kerbaol attacked her breakaway companion Persico on a rise and got a gap of 10 seconds.
Behind, Lippert had managed to bridge the gap to Persico, but with only two km remaining Kerbaol was still 10 seconds ahead. With Persico making the decision to sit on, Lippert was unable to close the gap to Kerbaol, and by the last kilometer it was clear that Kerbaol would take the victory.
Kerbaol crossed the line with 12 seconds in hand, while Persico outsprinted Lippert for second place.
RESULTS
Tre Valli Varesine Women’s Race, 1.Pro (136.3km)