CANYON//SRAM ZONDACRYPTO GENERATION DOMINATE STAGE 1 IN VOLTA OSONA

CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto Generation dominated stage one of Volta Osona Feminina. German youngster, Joëlle Messemer finished third in last night’s opening prologue and started the three-day national-level stage race in third place. 

In an impressive display of teamwork, the young riders combined their strengths to collect a hoard of results: Joëlle sprinted to stage victory, Jule Märkl finished in third place, and now leads the sprint classification and is second in the mountain classification. Teammate and 2024 Zwift Acadmey winner Emily Dixon sprinted to eleventh on the stage and leads the mountain classification, while Awen Roberts was seventh on the stage and is second in the sprint classification. 

A superb day for the team, only tainted by teammate Maddie le Roux needing to abandon the race to receive treatement for an elbow injury following an early crash in the wet conditions.

Joëlle leads the way explaining the team’s results in the first two days of racing:

“I felt good in yesterday’s prologue. I could push the whole way and I felt strong on the climb. I was happy how I took the corners and overall was quite happy with the result. 

Today, our plan today was to make the race hard, follow the attacks and then attack ourselves in the final 30km. Unfortunately, we lost Maddie in an early crash in the rain. That meant we were racing with just four riders. Awen was strong in the breaks and Emily could win the mountain points. Jule also raced really well. 

I won the stage but the team was very active for all of the stage and it was team effort. It was an uphill sprint finish. Awen did a late attack but when she was caught, I told her to keep pushing to bring me to the finish line so I could sprint. I’m happy for the teamwork, and grateful for Awen’s efforts. It feels good to win and the results are deserved as we did a good race together.”

Jule adds to the picture:

 “We had a delay to the start of the stage for 2.5 hours but maybe that worked in our favour because we raced in the rain and it meant it wasn’t as hot as last week!

We had our own bad luck today with myself crashing and also Maddie crashed and had to leave the race.

I won the intermediate sprint, Emily won the QOM and Joëlle won the stage and i was third, and then Awen was in a lot of the breakaways. It was a really fun race!

I think we showed we were the strongest team in the race. We were in a good position in the last two climbs and then in the final kilometres Awen did another attack. When the peloton caught her, Joëlle started her sprint and I was able to hold her wheel to get third place. It was a good job by all of the team!”

HOW TO FOLLOW

Stage 2 | Sunday, June 22 | Tona – Tona | 81.3km | 723m elevation | Start: 12:30 – Fastest finish: 14:31 CET.