Vos amazes everyone with Catalan victory in mountain stage: "This is bizarre"

That Marianne Vos can win is by now well known. However, seeing her claim tough mountain stages is something we see less often. Yet, the experienced Dutchwoman did just that in the Tour of Catalonia. Even the North Brabant native herself found it quite remarkable that she managed to win such a stage...

In the second stage of the three-day Catalan event, the riders faced two first-category climbs. In short, tough climbing work. Yet, the Visma | Lease a Bike team approached the foot of the final climb with great ambition, where Fem van Empel and newcomer Femke de Vries were the first to try their luck. After these attempts proved fruitless, Vos then started her effort. She initially had a number of riders join her, but managed to drop them with a scorching second acceleration, securing a solo victory.

Final win Catalonia within reach for Vos

"This is bizarre," Vos concluded in a message on the team website. "I never expected to be able to compete for the win in a mountain stage. The legs felt good and on the final climb I tried to keep up as long as possible. As the group got smaller and smaller, I still saw many teammates around me. That was a geeat feeling and motivated me tremendously."

"The plan was for Fem and Femke to make the race hard from the start of the climb. They executed that superbly," continued the veteran. "After Femke's attack, I looked around and saw that we were all still there. At that moment I thought: now I'll give it a shot. There was a response to that at first, but later there was none. It's very special to win a stage in this way."

In the final stage, Vos needs to defend a one-minute lead. However, that lead is over Femke Markus, a teammate. The third-place rider, Katrine Aalerud, is one minute and eight seconds behind. "We will definitely defend the jersey," said Vos. "Tomorrow there are still some hills on the programme, but it's a totally different stage to today. I think a lot of teams still want some action, so it will definitely not be easy."