Vuelta a Burgos Feminas: Anastasiia Chursina's solo wins in the second stage

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The 26-year-old Russian Anastasiia Chursina, rider of the Alé BTC Ljubljana team, took today the most important victory of her career, the first at WorldTour level. With a splendid solo action in the last 17 kilometres of the race, the Russian won the second stage of the Vuelta a Burgos Feminas, in Spain.

A team success that has rewarded the Chursina, but that goes to reward the work of the whole team that has interpreted today with great courage this interlocutory stage and that with all the girls has strongly wanted this victory. A perfect tactic that redeems the team after so much bad luck.

The imperative today was to try to bring off a breakaway and Anastasiia Chursina managed to get into a good one along with Heidi Franz (Rally Cycling) and Antri Christoforou (Burgos) after about thirty kilometres from the start. In the final, when the peloton tried to react, the Russian brought two accelerations that allowed her to make the difference and break away from her companions. At that point, with just over 17 kilometres to go, a sort of individual time trial began for Chursina. At one point her lead over the peloton was almost two minutes and she was also the virtual leader’s jersey. In the end, she finished 1:11 ahead of the peloton to take a beautiful and important victory.

Sixth place in the final sprint for young Laura Tomasi, but Mavi Garcia, Tatiana Guderzo, Marlen Reusser and Sophie Wright also deserve a big applause. A real team success!

“We had decided since the morning that today we had to enter in the breakaways and so it was,” said the excited winner Anastasiia Chursina, “I gave everything and when I saw that the group was getting closer I pushed even more and I was alone. I knew I had a good lead and I tried with all my strength to keep it. The team behind helped me a lot and I have to thank my teammates a lot. I felt good, I had the chance to try today and I am very happy with this victory. I try to improve day after day, stage after stage and today was my day. I’m very happy!”

The team manager of Alé BTC Ljubljana Fortunato Lacquaniti is also happy: “It was an intermediate stage, not hard, but still challenging, with two climbs. I told the girls that today we should try to take away a breakaway, they all tried and Chursina managed to take it away with two other girls. We planned it well and I saw great teamwork. With about fifteen kilometres to go I told her to go on her own, and even though she was obviously tired she did a great job of staying ahead of everyone. We are very happy with this WorldTour level victory. At one point we also had the jersey, but that wasn’t a goal today. We wanted the win. We needed it after a difficult period for the whole team and for morale. Hopefully now our luck has turned a bit on our side”.

The Vuelta a Burgos Feminas will continue tomorrow and the day after with two demanding stages that will define the general classification: tomorrow with the ‘wall’ of Ojo Guareña and Sunday with the fearsome climb of Lagunas de Neila.​