Vuelta a Burgos Feminas: Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig wins stage 3

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Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope) has won stage 3 of the Vuelta a Burgos Feminas, taking the first Women's WorldTour victory of her career. The Danish climber emerged as the strongest on the finishing climb, beating Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) and Anna van der Breggen (Team SD Worx) in the sprint.

“The stage was actually pretty calm. In the final, we were just like, let us have some fun, let us go out and attack. I am so proud of the team protecting me the whole day, and then in the final it was so nice to see Evita [Muzic], this young French girl, going up and attacking. It was just such a good day,” said Uttrup Ludwig.

Niamh Fisher-Black (Team SD Worx) finished in fifth place, three seconds behind the winner, and is the new overall leader going into the final stage, with Grace Brown (Team BikeExchange) on the same time and Niewiadoma, Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo), Uttrup Ludwig, and Van der Breggen at two seconds. Fisher-Black is also the best U23 rider in the race and, on top of that, leads the mountain classification.

“I cannot believe I am sitting here wearing the leader’s jersey of a WorldTour race. I am still new to this whole WorldTour racing, and to get the leader’s jersey here is my biggest result,” the 20-year-old Newzealander said.

Looking to the final stage finishing atop the 12.5-kilometre climb to the Lagunas de Neila, Fisher-Black said: “I have a super-super strong team behind me, I think there are several girls on my team that could actually win tomorrow. And I have never raced up such a long climb like it finishes up tomorrow, so I have no idea what I can do, but I have been surprising myself every day here. I am looking forward to seeing what I can do, but also how I can help my teammates where I can, because I think we can really pull off a win here.”

How it unfolded

There were numerous attempts to establish a break on the 115.4-kilometre stage from Medina de Pomar to Ojo Guareña, but none of the riders who tried to get away were let go.

As a result, the peloton entered the first classified climb, the Alto de las Hoyas, together. Spanish champion Mavi García (Alé BTC Ljubljana) was the first of the favourites to attack, 22km from the finish, followed by Fisher-Black, who was targeting the mountain points. They were quickly caught again, and Uttrup Ludwig made a counterattack that was again followed by Fisher-Black, with Pauliena Rooijakkers bridging to the front shortly afterwards. 

Fisher-Black led the three riders through the mountain sprint with 20.4km to go with a 15-second advantage over the peloton, but they were reeled in after the descent.

Evita Muzic (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope) and Sabrina Stultiens (Liv Racing) were the next to attack and held a small gap for several kilometres in undulating terrain until a move by Erica Magnaldi (Ceratizit-WNT) led to a general regrouping with just over ten kilometres to go.

After Canyon-SRAM closed down the next attack by Tayler Wiles (Trek-Segafredo) and Karol-Ann Canuel (Team SD Worx), it was overall leader Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM) herself who attacked on a descent with Canuel trying to follow her. 

Canuel did not contribute to the work when she finally made it to Chabbey’s wheel with four kilometres to go, and the two were caught on the lower slopes of the 1,400-metre finishing climb.

As Chabbey lost contact with the best on the final kilometre, Brown led the peloton into the sprint. Fisher-Black opened up first, 200 metres from the line, but was quickly passed by Niewiadoma. At the 100-metre to go mark, Uttrup Ludwig jumped from Niewiadoma’s slipstream to win the stage.