Marianne Vos wins first stage and celebrates overall victory in Profile Ladies Tour 2011
Nederland Bloeit team’s Marianne Vos continued her good efforts and took first place in the opening stage of Profile Holland ladies tour 2011 on Tuesday, September 6. She also took the overall leader’s jersey.
The race started in Neerijnen and ended in Ophemert. The 24-year-old, Dutch cyclo-cross and track racer took a total of 2 hours, 48 minutes and 11 seconds to cover the distance of 114.3 kilometres.
After finishing the stage, Vos was very happy with her performance and said, “There was wind and rain from the start and there was action straight away, there was a lot of wind on the dykes; we rode away in the group and spent the whole race riding into
the wind. Ultimately, it ended in a sprint.”
With few kilometres to go, the group of fifteen cyclists made a breakaway including Shelley Olds (Diadora-Pasta Zara), Irene van den Broek, Teutenberg, Theresa Cliff-Ryan, Roxane Kneteman, Lucinda Brand, Emma Johansson and Gloria Presti (Top Girls-Fassa
Bortolo).
All of them gained a lead of a few seconds while Kristen Wild increased her pace and took maximum points in the first intermediate sprint ahead of Vos. The three cyclists Cliff-Ryan, Kneteman and Presti were dropped. In the final five kilometres, AA Drink-Leontien.nl
was unable to gain a lead against Vos.
Wild told the media, “It went wrong in the sprint, but there are more opportunities, in any event I hope to win a stage this year.”
However, Vos crossed the final line first while Ina Yoko Teutenberg of HTC Highroad Women was runner-up with 1 second down to Vos while Kirsten Wild of AA Drink-Leontien.nl Cycling was in third spot ahead of Emma Johansson.
Vos also took overall lead with the timing of 2 hours, 47 minutes and 56 seconds while Kristen Wild was in second spot at 7 seconds down to Vos.
Teutenberg finished third with the difference of 10 seconds while Emma was in fourth place with difference of 16 seconds.
Recently, Vos also took the Dutch National cyclo-cross championship and UCI cyclo and track World Championship. She also grabbed first place in La Fleche Wallonne Feminine.
The second stage will start in Gemert (ITT) and all cyclists will cover the distance of 20.5 kilometres.
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