Saturday kicked off the spring classics in Europe, and it was just as hectic and chaotic as expected. Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio was out best with an 8th place, after a sprint for 4th place with 22 riders. Only 6 seconds ahead was a small breakaway where Amy Pieters (Giant-Shimano) was the strongest in a 3-girl sprint. It was a day where we had some bad luck at strategic moments, Chloe Hosking had a small crash on top of the Cote-de-Trieux which cost her too many places, and Elisa Longo Borghini had a crash going into Patersberg, which disturbed her rythm.
The start of the race was going well for us, and Thea Thorsen and Sara Olsson guarded Elisa until the entrance of the first major climb. A small crash for Ashleigh didnt destroy anything at this early stage. Elisa handed over the captain role to her after her crash, as she was apparently in a good shape. She almost bridged to the leaders (Majerus/Johansson/Pieters/Armitstead)  together with Van Vleuten (Rabo), but they were caught up by a chase group. This chase group never cooperated well, and failed to catch the 3 leaders (Majerus dropped back to this group). Audrey Cordon did some chasing with Lotto and Futurumshop, but Audrey had to use most of her energy on closing down attacks on the chase group. So as a result the leaders stayed away.  In the final sprint Audrey lead out and Ashleigh did a fine sprint for the 8th place. Chloe took the peloton sprint (for rehearsal, she said :-),
So we ended up with 8th place and 4 riders in the top 30, and a good team effort. It could easily have been a podium with a little more luck.
Team: Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, Audrey Cordon, Elisa Longo Borghini, Chloe Hosking, Thea Thorsen, Sara Olsson
Results

Photos