Femke Gerritse denies Marianne Vos and sprints into Red Jersey at La Vuelta Femenina 2025 with stage 3 win

Team SD Worx - Protime's Femke Gerritse has sprinted to the win on stage 3 of the 2025 La Vuelta Femenina, denying the legendary Marianne Vos and moving into the Red Jersey of race leader as a result.

A five-woman group rode clear relatively early on to form the breakaway of the day. Best placed on GC at the start of the day was Magdalene Lind of Team Coop - Repsol, just 41 seconds down. As such, the Norwegian was the provisional Red Jersey for much of the day. With 33km still to go though, Lind and the entirety of the break had been caught by the peloton, just in time for the intermediate sprint where bonus seconds were on offer. In that sprint, it was Femke Gerritse who took 6 seconds, Marianne Vos 4 and a very close call between race leader Letizia Paternoster and Cedrine Kerbaol for the final 2 second bonus.

After that sprint, the race erupted into echelon chaos with the wind completely exploding the peloton. Among the notable names caught out behind were Ellen van Dijk, Pauliena Rooijakkers, Marion Bunel, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, Riejanne Markus, Anna Henderson and Olivia Baril. At the front meanwhile, Team SD Worx - Protime were keeping the pace high in an attempt to potentially end the GC hopes of those rivals caught out. With just over 15km to go though, the split was undone, and those returning could breathe an almost audible sigh of relief.

With the focus then turning towards the finale and the expected bunch sprint, all the main GC contenders safely navigated themselves through the safety buffer of the 3km to go mark. There was then a big crash inside the final 2km, but when the sprints opened up, it was SD Worx back on the front and in control through Anna van der Breggen. Once Gerritse opened up her sprint, even the legendary Marianne Vos couldn't come around, securing the stage win and the Red Jersey.