"Everything clicked today and all the pieces fell into the right place": Urska Zigart and AG Insurance - Soudal Team wrap up a successful Vuelta Femenina on the Angliru

Cycling
Monday, 11 May 2026 at 06:00
Urska Zigart during recon for Liege-Bastogne-Liege 2026
The 2026 Vuelta Femenina came to an end on Saturday, and AG Insurance - Soudal Team has plenty of reasons to smile, as the squad hit all their main targets during the seven-day race in Spain. Shari Bossuyt grabbed a stage win early on, while Urska Zigart locked in a top-10 finish overall after a very smart ride up the Angliru. Add in a third-place finish in the team standings, and the group is heading home happy.

Surviving the Angliru

The final stage of the season's first Grand Tour was also the hardest. Stage 7 finished on the Alto de l'Angliru, a climb that is 12.4 kilometers long with an average gradient of 9.7%. With some ramps hitting 23%, the steep roads quickly split up the peloton and created big time gaps between the overall favorites.
Slovenian Champion Urska Zigart started the day sitting 12th in the general classification. Instead of going too hard on the steepest parts and blowing up, she rode at her own steady pace. As the climb went on, she passed several riders who had gone out too fast ahead of her, crossing the finish line in a solid seventh place on the stage.
Because of this smart pacing, Zigart jumped up the leaderboard to finish sixth overall. This is her best GC result ever in six Grand Tour starts.
"My team did an amazing job today and I am grateful for that and for protecting me the entire day," a happy Zigart reflected at the finish in words shared by the team. "I felt like everything clicked today and all the pieces fell into the right place. It was a brutal climb, but I focused just on myself and on giving my best, and the result I took here is something that gives me a lot of confidence for the next races with AG Insurance - Soudal."
HHe_kz6WcAAtPo9
Shari Bossuyt outsprinted everyone to secure stage 2 of La Vuelta Femenina

Hitting all the targets

Along with Zigart's overall finish, AG Insurance - Soudal Team also took third in the team classification. Sports director Fien Delbaere was very pleased with how the riders worked together on the Spanish roads.
"Before this La Vuelta ’26, we had two goals: winning a stage and finishing top-10 with Urska in the general classification. I’m really happy how this week went and we could tick off both objectives, with the second stage won by Shari,. . Next to that, we wore three days the white jersey for the best-young-rider with Lore and one day the mountain jersey with Ashleigh, where we finished second in both classifications," Delbaere stated.
"In the end we finish 6th and 11th in the general classification with Urska and Lore, what is a great result for both of them and the team. It’s a pity that Lore misses the top-10 with only one second and Ashleigh came close to the QOM jersey today but overall I’m really proud about the performances of the whole team.Everybody did a really good job this week. We had a plan and everybody really committed to that plan. So every one of the team can go home as a happy person, looking back to the past week."
claps 0visitors 0
loading

Just in

Popular news

Latest comments

Loading