Wiggle-Honda went one-two in the women’s Tour of Flanders on Sunday.
Elisa Longo Borghini took a solo victory in the 145km third round of the women’s UCI World Cup. Her teammate, Belgian road champion Jolien D’hoore, winner of the first round of the series, followed her onto the podium 43 seconds later.
“I feel great,” said Longo Borghini. “It’s a dream. I really can’t believe it. And we are one and two, so it’s incredible.”
Anna van der Breggen (Rabo-Liv) rounded out the podium in third.
The 23-year-old Longo Borghini has twice finished just off the podium at Flanders, crossing fourth the past two years. This year, she attacked with 28km to go and never looked back.
A powerful chase formed, containing D’hoore, van der Breggen, world road champ Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Rabo-Liv), Lizzie Armitstead and Chantal Blaak (Boels Dolmans), Elisa Cecchini (Lotto Soudal), Annemiek van Vleuten and Lotta Lepisto (Bigla), and Alena Amialusik (Velocio-SRAM).
But Longo Borghini would not be caught, and D’hoore proved best of the rest for second.
“We had two options: me — I had to win solo of course, because I’m slow in the sprint — and Jolien, who’s really fast. So yesterday evening Audrey Cordon got sick and we promised her that we would win for her. And we did,” said Longo Borghini.
“After Kanarieberg Trixi Worrack (Velocio-SRAM) attacked and Van Dijk followed and I followed her and countered. And from there I won solo.
“I wanted to win. When I attacked I attacked to win the race. The last 5Ks were hard. You never know, sometimes you can explode, but I was too excited. I just pushed as much as I could.”
Megan Guarnier (Boels Dolmans) was the top American in 11th at 3:30.
Editor’s note: Dan Seaton contributed to this report. Stay tuned for more from Flanders.
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