Elise Chabbey brought her strong performances from the Ardennes Classics to the Ceratizit Festival Elsy Jacobs tour today in Steinfort, Luxembourg. After being active in several moves in the final fifteen kilometres, the Swiss national champion finished fourth on the stage when a small group sprinted to the line. Emma Norsgaard (MOV) took line honours with teammate Mikayla Harvey finishing eleventh.
“I was fourth, Mikayla was eleventh. Maybe we can call ourselves sprinters soon?! But seriously, we can be proud of our efforts today,” said Elise after the finish.
“The main focus of our team plan was to be always close together and well positioned. Our squad here isn’t the most experienced so we decided being close to one another, is the best way to make sure we’re always ready for action.”
“Especially as we came closer to the finish, Mikayla covered a lot of attacks which was great. I also tried to be a part of the late moves. We had nothing to lose and Mikayla and I decided it was our best chance to get a nice result.”
“I had super good legs today. Maybe I could have done even better if I hadn’t been so active in other parts but then when it came to a sprint in the end and to get fourth, I think is a good result for me. On one side I could be a bit disappointed but at the same time I’m also happy,” added Elise.
Elise yesterday evening finished 21st in the tour prologue. After the fourth place today, Elise now moves into top ten on the general classification.
The second stage, 105.3km around Garnich starts at 14:00CEST. The race can be followed on Twitter with #FElsy. A live broadcast of tomorrow’s final stage is available on the race website here and in all territories on GCN+.