Borghesi on the podium in Valenciana

Borghesi on the podium in Valenciana

The Italian delivered AG Insurance – Soudal fifth top-three finish of the season.

Letizia Borghesi needed just two days in the AG Insurance – Soudal jersey to show what she is capable of, making it onto the podium at the end of Setmana Femenina’s second stage, which took place around the town of Vila-real, over a 115.5km course punctuated by three climbs in the first part.

It was a completely chaotic finish, a crash in the last two kilometers – just moments after the breakaway had been caught – derailing the sprint trains and taking some riders out of contention. Letizia was well placed at all times and avoided the pile-up, which allowed her to round out the final corner near the front of the small group that contested the victory. In what turned out to be an atypical sprint, the 27-year-old had the power to launch from the distance and generate a strong turn of legs that put her in the top three on this stage won by Cat Ferguson (Movistar).

“I'm really happy about the result and the team performance. The race was quite hard in the first part with some long climbs, where we were alert for possible breakaways but the race ended in a bunch sprint. With 1.5 kilometres to go I thought my race was over as a crash happened in front of me. But luckily I kept pushing towards the finish so could put myself in a good position for the sprint, with a third place in the end. This result gives me a lot of motivation for the next stages and races coming up.”, said Letizia after the second podium of her career on Spanish soil.