The Women's Tour: Marta Bastianelli wins first sprint. Victory number 16 for the team

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Sixteenth victory of the season for the team Alé BTC Ljubljana, the fourth at UCI Women’s WorldTour level. It continues the excellent end of season for the Italian team that today won the first stage of The Women’s Tour, thanks to the winning sprint of Marta Bastianelli.

Stage of 147,7 km, from Bicester to Banbury, with a treacherous final. Bastianelli was extraordinary in leading her own sprint and leaving behind the Australian Chloe Hosking (Trek-Segafredo Women) and the French Clara Copponi (FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope).

With this success Marta Bastianelli is also the first leader of the British stage race.

The winner Marta Bastianelli says: “It was a long race, but we were at least lucky from the weather point of view that it didn’t rain. My teammates stayed close to me, then at the last kilometre there was a fall that split the group, I was able to climb up to the front, I took a good position and I was able to win the sprint. We are living a good moment, now we will see what will happen in the next days. As there are only four of us in the race we don’t have great ambitions for the general classification, also because I won’t be able to compete in the time trial. We will try to be protagonists and maybe try to win another stage”.

Enthusiastic also the team manager Fortunato Lacquaniti: “Although we had lined up at the start with only four athletes, unfortunately Marlen Reusser after the fall at Roubaix could not be here, we have race a great stage. It was a difficult sprint, with a descent and a ninety-degree turn just 200 meters from the finish and then a straight uphill at 3/4 percent. Marta was super and the whole team was great. We are now at 16 victories in the season and we prove once again that we deserve our place among the top teams in world cycling.​