In a nail-biting finish to the Tour of Scandinavia, Dutch cyclist Annemiek van Vleuten clinched the overall win by a razor-thin margin of just two seconds. Her closest rival, Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig of Denmark, made a valiant attempt to dethrone the leader during the event’s hilly final stage around Haderslev. Uttrup Ludwig surged away on the concluding climb, securing the stage win and collecting ten crucial bonus seconds.
Despite several early escape attempts, including a short-lived lead by Elena Hartmann and Anya Louw, the peloton was mostly together as it approached the final ascents. Ludwig, 17 seconds behind van Vleuten at the start of the day, mounted an initial attack on the second climb. However, she couldn’t make it stick until the last climb, where she pulled away, opening a gap that van Vleuten couldn’t close.
Van Vleuten had no answer and had to chase as heavy rain complicated conditions. She managed to finish just five seconds behind Ludwig, aided in part by Lorena Wiebes, who ‘made up’ a few seconds in the sprint for second place. The final calculations revealed that van Vleuten’s total time loss to Ludwig was 15 seconds for the stage, allowing her to preserve a two-second overall lead for what might be the final win of her long career.
Sharing the final podium with van Vleuten and Ludwig was Amber Kraak of Jumbo-Visma, who finished in third place, 33 seconds behind the leader. The contest underscored the ultra-competitive nature of the sport, where victories are often determined in the blink of an eye—or, in this case, by a mere two seconds.
2023 Tour of Scandinavia Stage 5 result
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2023 Tour of Scandinavia Overall result
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