Sunday April 14, 2024 at 2:13 PM
Marianne Vos has won the shortened tenth edition of the Amstel Gold Race for women. The Visma rider | Lease a Bike seemed to have to settle for second place in the sprint, but managed to outwit the prematurely cheering Lorena Wiebes with an ultimate jump.
For the tenth time, the Women’s WorldTour peloton stormed the Dutch-Limburg slopes that characterize the Amstel Gold Race. Twisting and turning, descending and climbing is the recipe for this prestigious competition. The crème de la crème of women’s cycling was at the start today in Maastricht, with defending champion Demi Vollering, world champion Lotte Kopecky, woman-in-form Elisa Longo Borghini and Dutch contenders such as Marianne Vos and Shirin van Anrooij.
Match stopped after accident with police officer
In a very entertaining opening phase, several riders tried to take the lead, but initially no one got away. The first to widen a significant gap was Anne Knijnenburg. The 22-year-old VolkerWessels rider’s lead never exceeded half a minute and so a regrouping seemed a matter of time. Even before the climb of the Adsteeg, the lone front runner was caught again. This turned out to be the signal for a teammate of Knijnenburg, Quinty Schoens, to attack.
Kopecky and Vos wait for the restart – photo: Cor Vos
The home runner tried to set up an early escape together with the Canadian Clara Emond. However, after more than forty kilometers of racing, the organization had to make a drastic decision and neutralize the race, due to a serious accident with a police officer on a part of the course where the riders still had to pass. Because the emergency services had to do their work, the match could not take place. This also had consequences for the men’s race: the Bergseweg was deleted from the route and the riders took a detour towards the Korenweg.
Only three rounds around Valkenburg
After a delay of more than an hour, the peloton started moving again, but the organization saw no other solution than to have the riders ride neutralized from the Bergseweg to Valkenburg, to the start of the local final round. There the race would start again for just three circuits (55 kilometers) with the Cauberg (0.8 km at 6.6%), Geulhemmerberg (0.7 km at 6.6%) and Bemelerberg (1 km at 6.6%). 4.4%) as remaining executioners.
In other words, the riders could prepare for a very short and explosive edition of the Amstel Gold Race. Already in the first kilometers there was a battle for the pendulum. The big names also showed up at the peak of the race: Kopecky, Longo Borghini and Lucinda Brand were already involved in the debates on the flanks of the Geulhemmerberg. There was no standstill at any point, but this also made it extremely difficult to break away from the peloton.
The match resumes – photo: Cor Vos
Spectacle on the first passage of the Cauberg
We therefore charged with a compact group at the very first passage of the Cauberg, where the peloton was pulled into a ribbon and was even separated by Longo Borgini. The Italian champion of Lidl-Trek took the plunge on the steepest slopes of the famous Limburg slope. Only five riders had an answer, with Katarzyna Niewiadoma, Else Chabbey, Amber Kraak, Anna Henderson and Demi Vollering.
An interesting fact: with Lidl-Trek (Longo Borghini), SD Worx-Protime (Vollering), Visma | Lease a Bike (Henderson), Canyon//SRAM (Niewiadoma, Chabbey) and FDJ-SUEZ (Kraak) were almost all the major teams represented in this elite group. The flight seemed to have a chance of success, but the cooperation at the front was not optimal. When turning up the Geulhemmerberg, the six top riders were grabbed by the wrists again.
Van Agt and Kastelijn on the attack
On the spur of this climb we saw another attack attempt. This time Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Deceuninck), Ricarda Bauernfeind (Canyon//SRAM) and Eva van Agt (Visma | Lease a Bike) saw their chance to get away with it. The peloton now gave up and the lead quickly increased towards the minute. Anouska Koster saw this with dismay and decided to counterattack, but the Dutchwoman from Uno-X Mobility failed to close the last gap.
Koster hung around fifteen seconds for a while, but lost even more ground in the run-up to the second passage of the Cauberg. Kastelijn, Bauernfeind and Van Agt started with a very nice bonus (over a minute) in the 800 meter long calf bite. In short, the favorites still had a lot of work to do, but due to the headwind there was not much enthusiasm to light the fuse. Longo Borghini felt called to move on for a second time.
Van Agt, Kastelijn and Bauernfeind in attack – photo: Cor Vos
Striking denouement: top teams keep aloof
The Italian managed to thin out the group again, but once again was unable to get away. Longo Borghini’s attack brought the peloton a lot closer to the head of the race. The three attackers started the last local lap of about eighteen kilometers with a lead of half a minute. Was this enough to stay out of the peloton’s grasp? Things suddenly looked a lot less rosy for Kastelijn, Van Agt and Bauernfeind, but giving up was not in their dictionary.
The three front runners continued to work well together in the following kilometers, while in the background it mainly had to come from the women of EF Education-Cannondale. Remarkably, the American formation received no help from top teams SD Worx-Protime and Lidl-Trek. The two formations had no one in the leading group, but kept aloof at this stage of the race. This played into the hands of the three attackers: the difference grew towards the minute mark with eight kilometers to go.
The lead melts like snow in the sun, still a sprint
The big names were surprisingly surprised in the run-up to the last time in Cauberg, because the difference of one minute seemed impossible to bridge in the remaining kilometers to the finish. Van Agt, Kastelijn and Bauernfeind: did one of these riders get a unique opportunity to win the Amstel Gold Race? Van Agt tried to throw her fellow escapees overboard on the penultimate slope, the Bemelerberg. Bauernfeind appeared to be able to follow, Kastelijn seemed to have to let go. However, the latter managed to resort to hanging and strangling again.
The decision therefore had to fall on the strips of the Cauberg. The three escapees may have already thought they were confident of victory, but due to the executioner work of Lidl-Trek and Lotte Kopecky, among others – in the service of her teammates – the lead decreased noticeably. At the foot of the Cauberg the difference was only fifteen seconds, so in the end we had to regroup. Despite a few uphill accelerations – from Longo Borghini, among others – no rider was able to make a difference.
Lorena Wiebes cheers, but too early! – photo: Cor Vos
Wiebes cries, Vos cheers
A sprint with a large group ultimately had to identify a winner. Vollering kept the pace high in the final straight line in the service of top favorite Wiebes, who had survived the selection. Longo Borghini decided to open the sprint, but Wiebes managed to stop her. The former European champion seemed to be on his way to victory and started cheering, but did so too early. The cunning Vos had an ultimate jump in his legs and won by half a wheel. The Visma rider | Lease a Bike won the Amstel Gold Race for a second time.
🚴🇳🇱 | A shortened and atypical version… but who cares? Lorena Wiebes sprints to victory, she thinks… because Vos is victorious in this Amstel Gold Race! 🙌🇳🇱 #AGR
📺 You can watch the race on discovery+ pic.twitter.com/K8NfoeYXzH
— Eurosport Netherlands (@Eurosport_NL) April 14, 2024
Norway’s Ingvild Gåskjenn surprisingly sprinted to third place – in the shadow of Vos and Wiebes. Pfeiffer Georgi and Longo Borghini completed the top 5. With Amber Kraak (8th) and Yara Kastelijn (9th), two Dutch women finished in the top ten.
