Trek take top team win
Much has been made of the arrival of TrekSegafredo’s women’s team. With a high budget, superstar roster and backing of the men’s team, expectations have been high that the squad was going to shake up the established order.
The season got off to a dream start at the team’s first race, the Tour Down Under, when Italian teenager Letizia Paternoster won stage 1. By the end of April, the wins had continued flowing – eight in total – three stages of Setmana Valenciana, Dwars door Vlaanderen, two stages at the Healthy Ageing Tour shared between five different riders. None yet at cycling’s top tier.
But when Trek did take their first WWT win, a stage and then the overall title at Emakumeen Bira, it
was perhaps fitting that it was off the back of a team performance at the longest running stage race on the calendar. To make matters even trickier, the 2019 edition of the Spanish race was said to be tougher than ever, after the organisers removed the time trial in favour of even more climbing metres.
Longo Borghini is not necessarily known as a top climber, rather a strong one-day racer with victories in Trofeo Binda, Flanders and Strade Bianche on her palmarès. She joined Trek after spending four seasons with Wiggle-High5 but off the back of a difficult 2018, that saw illness and fatigue hamper her. The last time she won a race was almost two years ago, in June 2017, when she completed the double at the Italian National Championships. At Emakumeen Bira, Trek said their aim was to challenge for a stage.
With the toughest climbs packed into the race’s second half, it was business as usual as Jolien D’Hoore won stage 1 from a sprint, before Amanda Spratt – the defending champion – won stage 2 from a break and took the race lead. One stage apiece to the two strongest teams, Boels and Mitchelton.
Yet on stage 3 the axis started to shift. Trek’s Tayler Wiles took the stage win with an attack on the penultimate climb to Opakua with 20km to go. Lauretta Hanson led the 29-year-old to the base of the climb before she went solo. Wiles, 54 seconds down on GC, was able to go clear and opened up a 40-second gap with just the steep summit finish to Santa Teodosia left, 2km long and peaking at 17 per cent. With Wiles up the road, Longo Borghini didn’t have to work, and simply followed the wheels to the line. She jumped in the final few metres to take second on the stage and a couple of valuable seconds.
The Italian was now third on GC, 12 seconds behind Spratt, going into the final day, which had four categorised climbs. Tour Down Under winner Spratt was still the favourite. But Trek had other ideas. First they sent Anna Plicher into a breakaway, and then when that was caught, Audrey Cordon-Ragot went up the road. The constant attacks gradually ground down Mitchelton, who were forced to chase on the
final climb. When Cordon-Ragot was caught, Longo Borghini sensed the moment to attack 1km from the top. With 18km largely downhill to the finish, the Italian opened up a small gap and though she had time to look over her shoulder and celebrate, the chasing peloton, and Spratt, were coming in fast. But a canny bit of quick thinking from Wiles in the sprint for the line stopped Spratt picking up any bonus seconds and gave Longo Borghini the GC win by just two seconds.
Trek-Segafredo have their first WorldTour win and signs suggest it won’t be the last.