THE DANISH CHAMPION ADDS HER FIFTH PLACE AFTER A SENSATIONAL WORK BY RODRIGUEZ, MARTÍN, GUARISCHI, TERUEL AND GONZÁLEZ IN ALL PHASES OF THE RACE, FROM THE ECHELONS TO THE LAUNCH OF THE SPRINT.
The victory that has been waiting for so many weeks has not come to Emma Norsgaard (Movistar Team), but once again, the Danish champion showed up at the Scheldeprijs -UCI 1.1; 135 km with cold, wind and cobblestones around Schoten- as one of the best cyclists in the world, and her teammates were fully up to the task.
The Blues rode with enormous ambition from the start, going so far as to filter five of its six members in the initial echelons, with only twenty women in front. A puncture by Norsgaard in that group forced the whole of Pablo Lastras’s team – who then suffered falls, without consequences, for Emma and Alicia González, to rethink the strategy and think of a bunch sprint for which Sara Martín, Gloria Rodríguez, Barbara Guarischi, Alba Teruel and Gonzalez hem worked perfectly, neutralising moves and filtering the peloton on the way to mass arrival.
Only Lorena Wiebes (DSM), perhaps the best sprinter in the world, was able to beat a Norsgaard who has accumulated five second places, and who only twice since putting on a bib with Movistar Team has finished outside of the top-ten in a race. Reflecting the enormous progression of an increasingly feared and respected team in the peloton.
Image (c): Photo Gomez Sport