La Vuelta Femenina: Kristen Faulkner wins echelon-heavy stage 4 with late solo attack

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Kristen Faulkner (EF Education-Cannondale) won stage 4 of the Vuelta Feminina, using a small rise 6km from the finish to attack from a front group that formed in the crosswinds. 

Faulkner soloed to the finish to take the team's second Vuelta stage while Georgia Baker (Liv-AlUla-Jayco) won the sprint for second place ahead of Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike), who is the new overall leader. Vos took the red jersey from Blanka Vas (SD Worx-Protime), who finished fourth.

SD Worx-Protime had strung out the field after 20km and forced echelons, with only 19 riders making the front group. The speed never let up from there on, and although a chase group of about 40 riders came together eventually and reduced their deficit to 30 seconds, they could not close the gap and ended up losing over two minutes.

“We came to try to win some stages, and we’ve already won two. It’s early in the Vuelta, and we’re already so excited and so proud of what we’ve accomplished so far,” said Faulkner after being congratulated by her teammate and stage 2 winner Alison Jackson.

The echelons that split the peloton came right after the race passed La Yunta.

“Our DS told us to make sure we were in a good position in that town, and as soon as it was up, SD Worx went straight to the front and just drilled it. Fortunately, Alison and I were in a good position and made the front group. There was one point where the gap came down to 30 seconds, we tried to rally people, and then it went back out, so it was a good day,” Faulkner described the echelon action.

“I wanted to do a last-minute attack, I knew that climb was going to be a place where a lot of teams would try to attack. I actually decided to follow or counter instead of attacking myself because I knew that some team would try to go at that point. SD Worx tried a few attacks, I just hopped on wheels. 

"Then Demi [Vollering] and Elisa Longo Borghini tried one, and I was right on their wheels. I looked back, we had a small gap, and I was like, ‘this is the counter that I have to go on’. It was right before the climb, it was a great moment, so it was a bit of luck and planning,” said Faulkner of her stage-winning move.

How it unfolded

With crosswinds forecast for most of the day, it was a nervous peloton that lined up in Molina de Aragón. There were a few breakaways attempts before La Yunta that were quickly reeled in when SD Worx-Protime pushed the pace to split the field.

The team had six riders in the front group of 19 where Vollering, Vas, Niamh Fisher-Black, Mischa Bredewold, Elena Cecchini and Marlen Reusser were joined by Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek), Kasia Niewiadoma, Maike van der Duin (both Canyon-SRAM), Erica Magnaldi (UAE Team ADQ), Juliette Labous (DSM-Firmenich PostNL), Vos, Riejanne Markus, Sophie von Berswordt (all Visma-Lease a Bike), Georgia Baker, Silke Smulders (both Liv-AlUla-Jayco), Sheyla Gutiérrez (Movistar Team) and the EF duo of Faulkner and Jackson.

The dropped groups soon were over a minute behind, and by the time the first three chase groups had merged, they were 1:50 minutes down with 95km to go, marking the start of a long-distance chase. All of this contributed to an average speed of 46.754 kph, making the stage the fastest in the (admittedly short) history of the Vuelta Femenina.

Reusser suffered a mechanical with 75km to go but made it back to the front group. On the unclassified Puerto de Paniza climb, FDJ-SUEZ and Movistar Team pulled hard in the chase group and reduced the gap to 30 seconds, but it went back out to just over a minute at the 50-kilometre mark.

Cecchini also had a mechanical, leaving 18 riders in front. Red jersey Vas was briefly dropped from this group but managed to get back up, and eventually the gap between the two groups increased further.

At 12.3km from the finish, Vos won the intermediate sprint ahead of Vas and Longo Borghini, putting the 36-year-old Dutchwoman in the virtual GC lead. In the final stretch, SD Worx-Protime tried to anticipate a sprint, attacking first with Bredewold, then with Vollering, and when Faulkner countered the second attack, she increased her advantage over a small climb with 6km to go.

Longo Borghini, Vollering, Niewiadoma, and Vas had a small gap on the rest of the group but couldn’t cooperate in the chase, and by the time things came back together, Faulkner had a 15-second gap.

The US rider didn’t celebrate until after the finish line, and 10 seconds later, Baker won the sprint for second place ahead of Vos and Vas. The chase group crossed the line 2:01 minutes behind Faulkner, with many riders in groups well behind that.

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