Loes Gunnewijk wins third stage as Marianne Vos retains her lead in Profile Ladies Tour
Nederland Bloeit team’s Loes Gunnewijk showed a good effort and managed to take her first victory of the season in the third stage of Profile Ladies Tour 2011 on Thursday, September 8.
The race started and finished in Breda. The race leader Marianne Vos was able to hold her leader’s jersey. The 30-year-old Dutch cyclists took a total of 2 hours, 54 minutes and 18 seconds to cover the distance of 115.2 kilometres.
Her team-mate Vos was in second place with the difference of 27 seconds while Kirsten Wild of AA Drink-Leontien.nl Cycling finished third with the same timing as Vos.
After winning the stage, Gunnewijk told the media, "We actually wanted our team to do something later, but the moment was just perfect to try, I was able to keep pulling out the gap, and thereby gave a further confirmation that my form right now is just
perfectly fine."
Once again the rain has characterised the race while the group of 14 cyclists were able to make their breakaway lead in the early kilometers including, Kirsten Wild, Chantal Blaak (AA Drink), Emma Johansson, Lisa Brennauer (Hitec products UCK), Gunnewijk,
Vos, Elenora Van Dijk, Monia Baccaille (MCipollini), Cherise Taylor (Lotto Honda) and Joelle Numainville (TIBCO).
All of them worked well and managed to pull away in the final 15 kilometres, the break cross over the bridge while Teutenberg tried to take a lead but Gunnewijk opened a gap and crossed the finish line ahead of the other cyclists.
Gunnewijk explained, “Our team actually wanted to do something late on, but the opportunity was just perfect. I managed to open the gap further and confirm that my form is right where is should be at the moment.”
Emma Johansson took the title of most aggressive cyclists while Blaak held onto his best young rider’s jersey. Marianne Vos took the overall lead with a timing of 6 hours, 10 minutes and 12 seconds.
Emma was runner-up with 40 seconds and Kirsten Wild was in third spot with 1 minute and 40 seconds down to Vos.
The fourth stage will cover the distance of 127.5 kilometer and it will start and finish in Papendrecht.
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