June 13/10 10:41 am - Iurreta-Emakumeen Bira: Stage 4 and Final GC

Posted by Editoress on 06/13/10
 

Claudia Häusler wins Emakumeen Bira

Last year Claudia Häusler came second in the Emakumeen Bira. Heading into today’s final stage that’s where she sat, second. But today Häusler won it, in a decisive final stage that saw her place second in the stage where her compatriot and rival Judith Arndt (GER) lost five minutes. Annemiek Van Vleuten (NED-Netherland Bloeit) won the final stage and ended up second in the GC, 1:20 behind Häusler and 3:15 up on Arndt. Third in today’s stage went to Andrea Bosman (NED-Netherlands National Team) who along with van Vleuten and Häusler was part of the successful three rider break that eventually won the stage.

“Today’s last stage was a very hard stage, the hardest one all week, but a very nice stage for us,” said Egon van Kessel, Sports Director. “There were lots of mountains and 40km from the finish line there was a moment, I know it was fairly early, when Claudia tried to attack and she dropped Judith Arndt on the climb. At that moment there were two riders ahead, Bosman and Van Vleuten and they worked very well together with Claudia. There were four riders behind including Marianne Vos (NED-Netherland Bloeit), Emma Johansson (SWE-Red Sun), Arndt, and Vicki Whitelaw (AUS-Lotto-Ladies Team) but that group didn’t work as well together and at the end the three with Claudia had a big gap of some minutes. Van Vleuten won the race and Claudia came second but won the GC overall. So it was a great victory again. So we had a good campaign in Spain!”

“We said this morning we go for all or nothing. We wanted to win this race, and so we had to take some risks,” explained Claudia Häusler, after winning Emakumeen Bira. “There where two girls in front, van Vleuten and Bosman and I decided to gave it everything on the climb and I had a gap. So, I gave full gas and I was able to join them in front. We worked very well together though it was still a long way to the finish line. At the end the gap was pretty big. Annemiek van Vleuten won the stage and I had enough time to win the classification for the race. This race was important in my preparation for the Giro d’Italia. But it is also a big race, the biggest stage race in Spain. I have to say thanks to my team, all the riders worked really hard for me in the last days and did a fantastic job.”

Cervélo TestTeam press release