Mischa Bredewold (SD Worx-Protime) won stage 1 of the Itzulia Women. Led out by her teammate Demi Vollering, Bredewold was first to the line in a reduced bunch sprint in Elgoibar.
Arlenis Sierra (Movistar Team) finished second while Vollering still took third place.
The last escapee was reeled in on the descent from the last classified climb of the day, and despite a flurry of attacks, the race came down to a technical sprint won by Bredewold who is the race's first overall leader.
"This means a lot to me. It was a real relief, the sprint has been a little bit disappointing for me if I'm honest, but today and in the Vuelta already I felt good. The team did so well, they really believed in me and gave me support all day – that feels really special. The lead-out was perfect, and I am very grateful," said Bredewold after winning the seventh consecutive Itzulia stage for SD Worx-Protime.
"It's the first victory in my new beautiful jersey. I really wanted one, that also gives some pressure, and that's new for me. I had to get adjusted to that in the spring, now it's a really big relief that I can win in this jersey one time," the 2023 European champion was happy about her victory.
"We want to race really open as a team, it's really nice to wear the jersey now, we will see what happens in the upcoming days. The other girls also want to try something, and we have some really talented riders for the hard uphill stages, today was the 'easy' stage. For sure, we won't hold back, as long as we can win with the team, that's the most important."
How it unfolded
The 140-kilometre stage started in Vitoria-Gasteiz and included three classified climbs on its way to Elgoibar, one of them the steep ascent to Azkarate.
The race stayed together over the third-category Olaeta climb that was crested first by Olivia Baril (Movistar Team). It took until 63km to go before Petra Stiasny (Fenix-Deceuninck) and Stine Dale (Team Coop-Repsol) could form a breakaway, with Carolina Vargas (Eneicat-CMTeam) chasing without success for a while.
Dale dropped Stiasny on the Azkarate climb where Valentina Cavallar (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) bridged to the Norwegian, taking maximum points at the top. Together, Cavallar and Dale built a one-minute advantage over the peloton with 40km to go.
They started the third-category climb to Itziar with a 45-second gap, but as Brodie Chapman (Lidl-Trek) and Urška Žigart (Liv-AlUla-Jayco) made tentative moves off the front of the peloton and Vollering then stepped up the pace, the gap was quickly reduced to 15 seconds.
Cavallar made it over the top of the climb, putting her into the QOM jersey, but she was reeled in on the descent as Marlen Reusser (SD Worx-Protime) took up the chase. Dale was rewarded with the combativity prize.
After Baril won the intermediate sprint in Deba, there were attacks from Alice Maria Arzuffi (Ceratizit-WNT), Elena Pirrone (Roland), Carina Schrempf (Fenix-Deceuninck), Niamh Fisher-Black (SD Worx-Protime), and Brodie Chapman (Lidl-Trek) in the final – but DSM-Firmenich PostNL reeled in all the moves in support of their sprinter Josie Nelson who eventually finished fourth.
Movistar came to the front in the penultimate kilometre before Reusser flew past into the final kilometre with Vollering and Bredewold on her wheel, starting an excellent lead-out that brought Bredewold the stage win and had Vollering still finish third.
Results
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