Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) won the third stage of the Setmana Ciclista Volta Femenina de la Comunitat Valenciana, using her power on the riding finish to hit the line first.
Balsamo beat Ingvild Gåskjenn (Uno-X Mobility) and Agnieszka Skalniak-Sójka (Canyon-Sram-Zondacrypto) to take her first victory of the 2025 season after a second and fourth place in earlier sprints.
Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ) finished in the front group and so kept the overall race lead before Sunday's final mountain stage.
"We knew it was going to be a hard stage again, like every stage here," Balsamo said.
"First of all we needed to survive the climb. Then me, Anna [Henderson], and Spratty [Amanda Spratt], were in the first group. The girls did a really great job trying to close the gap on the breakaway.
"In the final I was just trying to jump on the wheels. I was a little bit scared to be stuck again, like yesterday, but I did a good sprint, so I'm really happy."
How it unfolded
The 118km stage offered another hard day in the saddle and in the Valencia hills, with the 5.6km long Puerto de L’Oronet climb coming after 87km.
Australia's Emily Watts (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93) was the first to attack and was joined by Juliana Londoño (Picnic PostNL), who was keen to show her new Colombian national champion's jersey.
They opened a lead of a minute but Watts then struggled on the Port de l'Oronet. Nikola Nosková (Cofidis) jumped across and was joined by five others, including Vollering but the second category climb failed to shake-up the overall classification.
Amber Kraak (FDJ-SUEZ), Mireia Benito (AG Insurance-Soudal) and Maeva Squiban (UAE Team ADQ) got away on the descent as the peloton regrouped and protected key riders like Balsamo.
Her Lidl-Trek teammates took up the chase on the gradual descent and flat roads to Valencia. The trio managed to hold a gap of 10-15 seconds into the last five kilometres but then SD Worx-Protime and Liv-AlUla-Jayco helped with the chase and the select peloton came back together with 1.5km to race.
Balsamo made sure she was well-placed and then led out the sprint on the rising road to the line.
Vollering starts Sunday's final stage in control of the orange leader's jersey. She leads Marlen Reusser (Movistar) by 34 seconds, with Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) third at 37 seconds.
Results
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