Guarnier wins opening stage of Amgen Women's Tour

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Megan Guarnier (Boels Dolmans) claimed her first victory of a troubled start to the 2017 season, coming to form just in time to repeat her win in the opening stage of the Amgen Breakaway from Heart Disease Women's Race empowered with SRAM. The US champion played off an attack by teammate and Olympic champion Anna van der Breggen to take the first race leader's jersey, with the Dutch rider sailing in for second. Guarnier's team rode hard from early in the race to keep the peloton under control and set up Guarnier for the win.

"They [Boels Dolmans] had their work cut out for them," Guarnier said. "Today was quite aggressive, and they had to keep things together, be in breaks and follow everything. I think it was a lot of work and they just let me stay calm and save everything for the finish."

Sunny skies, slight wind, and warm temperatures provided ideal racing conditions for the clockwise 117 km loop around Lake Tahoe. Racing began in earnest as the field crested the first QOM atop of Emerald Bay Summit 7km into the race. Kristabel Doebel-Hickok (Cylance Pro Cycling) crossed the line to draw first blood in this year's race, followed by Scotti Lechuga (Hagens Berman-Supermint) and Katie Hall (UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling.) The surge put several riders in trouble and began a series of attacks that would not stop for the remainder of the race.

Hagens Berman-Supermint, Cylance, Visit Dallas-DNA, and Team TIBCO were consistently active throughout the race with a non-stop series of attacks and counterattacks. Though constantly on the defensive, Boels Dolmans was able to lean on a strong crew of riders led by Olympic champion Anna van der Breggen.

"It was hard because the roads are big and if you are in front you feel a lot of wind, and if you are in back you feel nothing, and you can just pedal and go along with it," van der Breggen said about the day's efforts. "They knew from last year, I didn't race but they did, if there was an attack, it can be difficult to get it back, so we didn't want to get any big gaps. So at one point, the gaps get a little bigger and it was up for us to close it."

The most successful attack of the day came from Lizzie Williams (Hagens Berman-Supermint) who gained over a minute on the peloton midway through the race. Williams countered as Boels brought back another breakaway attempt and was able to establish a quick separation from the field.

"I was hoping that a couple of people were going to come with me, it wasn't the plan to go solo," Williams said. "But it was a good training day for me, I got my small team some exposure and it was something we really wanted to achieve today."

Williams was caught on the final climb with 25 km to go but earned the Most Courageous Rider jersey for her effort. Boels Dolmans shut down all further race activity with the idea of setting up van der Breggen and Guarnier on the final climb. Despite an increasingly hectic race situation Guarnier was able to fight through traffic to find her teammates for the push to the finish at the base of Heavenly Ski Resort.

An initial attack leading into the closing kilometers from Amy Pieters (Boels Dolmans) strung out the field and enabled Boels to line up their winning chess pieces. Karol-Ann Canuel began the fireworks with an attack on the final climb achieving a small gap, which was quickly neutralised by UnitedHealthcare. Anna van der Breggen then jumped taking Guarnier along with her. Guarnier launched her effort with 300 meters to go winning the race with teammate van der Breggen four seconds behind.

"I think tomorrow we are in a really good situation as a team," Guarnier said about her team's control of the general classification. "I think that with Anna in second right now, and we have really strong climbers, we should be in a good situation and hope to continue with our success here."

Arlenis Sierra (Astana), the up-and-coming Cuban rider, was third on the stage and Ruth Winder (UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling) finished fourth. It was a promising finish for Winder who is coming off a recent win at the Redlands Bicycle Classic stage race.

"It's a little disappointing to be just off the podium, but not too bad for the first day," Winder said after the race. "We've got a strong team and lots of cards to play."

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