Maike van der Duin (Canyon-SRAM) got here near successful stage 2 of the RideLondon Classique along with her assault 11 km from the end in Maldon, however the brief, steep climb up Market Hill was an excessive amount of for her.
What remained of the chase group after a late crash went previous her on the climb. The 21-year-old Dutchwoman completed seventeenth herself however might nonetheless rejoice after the stage as her teammate Chloé Dygert received the dash.
“I attacked after fairly a tough part of the race. Different groups have been attacking, and I felt like we wanted to take the initiative,” Van der Duin defined to Cyclingnews.
“We have been there with 3 riders, Chloé [Dygert], Soraya [Paladin], and myself, due to the work of our teammates earlier within the race. It was not a crew tactic to assault at that specific second, however I noticed a chance and went,”
The race had been on for some time by that time, with a bunch of 33 splitting off the entrance of the peloton and a excessive tempo on this group. The ultimate time up North Hill, Simone Boilard (St Michel-Mavic-Auber93) and Anna Henderson (Workforce Jumbo-Visma) put the strain on.
Racing on intuition, Van der Duin determined that it was time for her to assault regardless of having an excellent dash herself that introduced her podium finishes within the Ronde van Drenthe and Gent-Wevelgem earlier this yr.
Because the group was sluggish to react, the younger Dutchwoman might rapidly enhance her benefit in pursuit of what would have been her first professional victory. However within the closing two kilometres, the chase group got here nearer and nearer and wasn’t slowed down by a crash both, spelling the tip of Van der Duin’s solo.
“It will have been a dream if it labored out, however all I used to be centered on was going as laborious as doable. It motivates me that in the future the sort of transfer will work out,” she mentioned.
Nevertheless, her assault was not in useless because it allowed her teammates Paladin and Dygert to avoid wasting that little little bit of power within the group behind. Paladin led out Dygert up Market Hill, and the US rider completed it off to win her first Girls’s WorldTour stage.
