Ronde van Vlaanderen / Trofeo Villa de Noja

Incidents hamper Aude Biannic, Sheyla Gutiérrez's performances, ruin Blues' chances at Belgian Monument. Patiño (3rd), Llamas (5th) show great attitude to remain in Copa de España lead in Noja.

A series of unfortunate incidents kept the Movistar Team riders from repeating their fantastic result from last year at the Ronde van Vlaanderen, second round of the 2019 UCI Women’s WorldTour on Sunday, over 158km over a dozen tough hills and plenty of cobbled roads around Oudenaarde.

The squad directed by Jorge Sanz and Sebastián Unzué had to work hard to bring Sheyla Gutiérrez back to the peloton after a crash with 60km to go. Dropped after briefly bridging back, with help from González, Teruel and Rodríguez, Aude Biannic was left as the Blues’ main hope, before another crash, just under 30km before the end, left the Telefónica-backed squad with no hope after Malgorzata Jasinska’s 6th-place finish twelve months ago.

The race was decided into a ‘sprint à trois’, with big spring dominator Marta Bastianelli (TVC) taking the better from Annemiek van Vleuten (MTS, 2nd) and Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (BIG, 3rd). Biannic was the first Movistar Team finisher, around six minutes behind.

Spanish Racing Series: Patiño (3rd), Llamas (5th) defend themselves well in Noja

Over at their second race on Sunday, the three Movistar Team riders –Lourdes Oyarbide, Lorena Llamas and Paula Patiño– present at the 4th Trofeo Villa de Noja (Spanish Racing Series; 91km over four laps of a lumpy circuit in Cantabria) did a nice job at protecting themselves against two teams with quite bigger numbers, Sopela and Bizkaia-Durango, which ended up dominating the sprint. Portuguese rider María Martins (SWT) took a narrow success ahead of Sandra Alonso (BDU).

As the three Blues joined an initial, 11-woman move with three laps to go, later caught, Oyarbide worked hard for Patiño (3rd) and Llamas (5th) so they stayed fresh before entering the decisive, six-rider split, formed into the hills of the final lap. The Colombian and the Catalan remain in the lead of the elite and under-23 rankings at the Copa de España, which will resume in three weeks’ time (Sunday 28th), at the Trofeo Ciudad de Dos Hermanas in Sevilla.

2019 Trofeo Villa de Noja results

Cover picture (c): Velofocus