Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling’s Giorgia Bronzini scored her second second place finish in as many days in the fifth and final stage of the Women’s Tour, between Harwich, Essex, and Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, as the former two-time road World Champion was only bested by current rainbow jersey Marianne Vos (Rabobank-Liv). Once again, Bronzini was the only rider to be able to hold onto Vos’ wheel as the Dutch race leader accelerated on the paved finishing straight, but was unable to come around on the line. The battle for third was won by Amy Pieters (Netherlands), ahead of Hanna Barnes (UnitedHealthcare).
Her third stage win in succession was enough to secure Vos the overall race victory, while Bronzini rose one place to finish fourth overall.
“It was close again, but in the end she was stronger than me,” Bronzini conceded. “I tried with all the power that I have but in the end, when she started to sprint, I could only follow her. I didn’t have the power to come out from her wheel. She is really strong at the moment.”
The fifth stage followed a similar patter to the fourth, with a succession of early attacks leading to four riders going clear. The group was able to get almost two minutes ahead of the peloton, but Vos’ Rabobank-Liv team stepped up to its responsibility of closing it down.
When the gap was reduced to less than 30 seconds, in the closing kilometres of the stage, Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling came forward to help set up the sprint for Bronzini.
“When there were about 30km to go Lotte [Becker] and Dani [King] helped Rabobank to close the gap to the breakaway, and we caught them with about 10km to go and the war started again,” Bronzini explained. “There was a lot of fighting to try to go in a break again, but in the end we finished in a sprint.
“I was focused to follow Vos’ wheel at the end, but it was not enough.”
The result was Bronzini’s second runner-up spot – behind Vos – in as many days, and her third straight podium finish after having finished third on stage three.
“I’m happy though, because in the end it was the only solution to try an beat her in the sprint,” the Italian explained. “When I really wanted her wheel I just fought for it, and I got it. So that for me is good because sometimes you lose the wheel, but this time I did not.”
“Today they couldn’t have done any more really,” said Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling directeur sportif Simon Cope. “That group went away and it was mainly Rabobank that had to pull it back, so they took control. We helped a little bit late on, but you’re always going to struggle to beat Vos on that kind of technical finish.
“It was a good result really, it’s nearly as good as winning when you’re up against her!”
“It’s been a reasonably successful week,” Cope continued. “We had the goal of winning a stage and top three on GC; we got fourth on GC by six seconds, and two second places on the stages. We didn’t quite achieve the goal, but we weren’t a long way away either.
“I think we came to the conclusion that the peloton was pretty evenly matched. They did race hard, and there was a lot of wind. It’s not like Holland or Belgium where it’s just open fields though, it’s hedge lined so the wind didn’t really play a major part.”
Result
1. Marianne Vos (Rabobank-Liv)
2. Giorgia Bronzini (Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling)
3. Amy Pieters (Netherlands National Team)
