For the fourth year in a row, Elisa Balsamo secures her first win of the season in Valencia.
Elisa has a history of very strong performances at the Setmana Ciclista Valenciana, and it’s business as usual this year. With today’s victory bringing her tally of stage wins here to six, you could say Elisa is a bit of a fan of this race.
The stage covered 118 kilometers, starting from Sagunt and finishing in Valéncia, a stage in which Elisa won 12 months ago.
We knew that it was going to be a hard stage again, like every stage here, so first of all we needed to survive the climbs. Anna and Spratty were in the front group with me.
With the general classification teams pushing the pace up the category 2 Puerto de L’Oronet, the bunch was nearly halved in size. After the help of her teammates, Elisa was able to hang on and switch focus to the sprint finish. Over the top of the climb and less than 30 kilometres to go, Anna and Spratty had their work cut out to try and reel the breakaway in and set up Elisa.
The girls did a really great job trying to close the gap with the breakaway. Then in the final, I was just trying to jump on the wheels. I was a bit scared to be stuck again like yesterday, but I did a good sprint so I'm really happy.
With a 4th place on stage 1, 2nd yesterday and taking the top step today, Elisa is now leading the pink points jersey.
The biggest goal was the win but to take a jersey is always a really nice bonus.
