In a crash-marred an chaotic finale, Canadian National Champion Alison Jackson has powered to victory on stage 2 of the 2024 La Vuelta Femenina in Moncófar.
With six women going up the rode relatively early on to form the breakaway, the peloton kept the group on a tight leash throughout the day, keeping the timegap around a couple of minutes before completing the catch with 42km to go.
As the breakaway were caught before the top of the only categorised climb of the day, the Queen of the Mountains jersey was up for grabs. Sensing the opportunity and attacking from the peloton to take maximum points at the top of the climb, to move into the early lead of the climbing classification was Karlijn Swinkels of UAE Team ADQ.
With Team Visma | Lease a Bike setting a brutal pace at the front of the peloton, a number of the sprint rivals to Marianne Vos were dropped from the peloton, including most notably, Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL's Charlotte Kool. At the intermediate sprint, Blanka Kata Vas came second, taking four bonus seconds and moving into the provisional race lead as a result.
As the chase group including Kool nearing a return to the front, their cause was helped by a pair of crashes in the final 3km within the peloton. Due to those crashes a very small group crossed under the flamme rouge and as the sprints opened up it was Alison Jackson who powered to victory ahead of Vas and Swinkels.
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