Dutch rider wins women’s race; men begin
SACRAMENTO — Anna van der Breggen started the final stage of the Tour of California trailing by a second.
She finished it ahead by a second.
The Olympic road-race champion picked up two seconds on Katie Hall at an intermediate check and carried the slimmest of advantages all the way to the finish line Sunday, celebrating her fourth win of the season with a new car from Lexus.
“We had to take one second back. It’s not much, but it’s still difficult if you’re not really a sprinter in a stage like this,” she said. “The team did great, and I just had to hang on and get some seconds back, and we were really happy that it worked out and we got two seconds.”
The finale of the four-stage race consisted of laps on a 2.2-mile course through California’s capital, and it shaped up to be a race that would be decided by the sprinters.
Indeed, Italian speedster Giorgia Bronzini won the race to the line, holding off Stage 3 winner Coryn Rivera and Kirsten Wild of the Netherlands to grab the victory.
The plan for van der Breggen all along was to try to pick up the time she needed on Hall at the intermediate sprint. Her teammates on Boels-Dolmans set her up perfectly and she managed to come across to gain the bonus seconds, giving her the lead heading toward the final circuits.
Her victory followed the gold she won in Rio and wins in three other major one-day races this season: Amstel Gold Race, La Fleche Wallonne Feminine and Liege-BastogneLiege Feminine.
Hall finished second overall in a significant result for her UnitedHealthcare team which, unlike world powerhouse Boels-Dolmans, races primarily in smaller races in the U.S.
“This was a really big deal for us,” said Hall, who also won the mountains jersey. “We’re not in the WorldTour, and so being able to take it to the WorldTour teams was really an honor. I’m happy we went away with the team (general classification), because it really was a team effort.” Men’s race: Marcel Kittel took advantage of a textbook leadout from his Quick-Step Floors teammates to hold off Peter Sagan and Elia Viviani and win the opening stage of the Tour of California.
The German sprinter spent the 104-mile stage that began and ended in downtown Sacramento tucked safely in the peloton. And when the field brought back a four-man breakaway with about 15 miles to the finish, Kittel knew he would have a chance for his eighth win of the season.
Team Sky went to the front on the first of three 2.2-mile circuits, but it was Quick-Step that made the decisive move on the final lap with Fabio Sabatini launching Kittel to the finish line.
The second stage Monday takes riders 90 miles from Modesto to San Jose.