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Elisa Balsamo celebrates her first victory of 2025(Symbol credit score: Getty Pictures)
Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) gained the 3rd level of the
Setmana Ciclista Volta Femenina de los angeles Comunitat Valenciana, the usage of her energy at the driving end to hit the road 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 2d and fourth position in previous sprints.
Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ) completed within the entrance workforce and so stored the total race lead prior to Sunday’s ultimate mountain level.
“We knew it was going to be a hard stage again, like every stage here,” Balsamo mentioned.
“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.
“Within the ultimate I used to be simply looking to soar at the wheels. I used to be somewhat bit scared to be caught once more, like the day past, however I did a just right dash, so I am in point of fact satisfied.”
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 by 34 seconds, with Anna van der Breggen third at 37 seconds.
Results
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