Italian out sprinted Shelley Olds and Lucy Garner to claim victory
Giorgia Bronzini (Wiggle Honda) claims the 2014 Grand Prix Dottignies (Image credit: wiggle-honda.com)
Two time World Champion Giorgia Bronzini won her first race on European soil as she took out the 13th edition of the Grand Prix Dottignies, in Dottignies, Belgium. At the end of the 131km race Bronzini proved too fast for Shelley Olds (Alé-Cipollini) and Lucy Garner (Giant-Shimano).
"I'm really, really happy," Wiggle Honda's Bronzini said after her win. "Really, really happy.
"In the beginning of the race we had a little bit of trouble, because we started at the back, and the group was split in a crash after five or six-kilometres
"14 girls were gone, and we had to chase them with Giant-Shimano. We worked really hard for the first 30km, so after that we tried to control everything."
Bronzini's Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling team along with the other sprinters' teams controlled the lead that the break had managed to get away with Laura Trott and Charlotte Becker alert to any opportunists.
As the peloton readied itself for the last of the 14km laps, Trott and Dani King – both making their debut on the road this season – brought Bronzini to the head of the peloton who finished off the job to record her 18 win as a 'Wigglette.'
Thanking her teammates for guiding her to the win, Bronzini had nothing but praise after the win. "I felt good so the girls did a really amazing job. Everyone. They got into the breaks, they controlled everything.
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"When we came into the final lap I asked the girls to stay in front, and in the final kilometre Laura and Dani put me in the right wheel; I was in Lucy Garner's wheel. When I came out the final 200 metres was a little bit uphill, so it was perfect for me, and it the end it was good."
The GP Dottignies course is only a few kilometres west of Oudenaarde, the site of the previous day's Ronde van Vlaanderen, where Bronzini was 18th behind winner Ellen van Dijk (Boels Dolmans). "I had a good feeling in my legs yesterday, so I knew that I was in shape," Bronzini said, able to quickly overcome her World Cup dissapointment.
"This race today was a little bit different, with only a little bit of cobblestones, and only a little climb. It was another kind of race for sure."
