The winner made the difference on the last time up the Moskestraat. "I like that climb, it suits me well." In an earlier lap, the Italian had already made a surprise attack. From a chasing group, she was the only female leader to cross over to the group up ahead. There, she linked up with
UAE Team ADQ teammate Brodie Chapman who worked herself to bone for the Italian champion.
"I felt good and we wanted to make it a tough race. I knew she (Chapman, ed.) was strong, so I wanted to cross alone," she says. In the final kilometers it seemed to be getting exciting. The chasing group seemed to be closing in on Longo Borghini who was riding solo ahead. "I wasn’t surprised that they came back quickly because some teams still had so many riders. But I looked at my values and saw that it was good."
"I knew they had to dig really deep to catch me," said the rider who returned to the peloton after a short absence following a
crash at the Tour of Flanders. "It was a really nice race today, a bit of cobblestones and a bit of climbing and I like it,” the Italian champion concluded with a smile in her best Dutch.