La Vuelta Femenina 2023: Demi Vollering wins on Lagos de Covadonga but Annemiek van Vleuten holds on for GC win

Lagos de Covadonga delivered the thrilling finish La Vuelta Femenina organisers had craved, as Demi Vollering (SD Worx) cracked Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar), but the world champion took the overall title by nine seconds, her third Vuelta in as many years.

Van Vleuten took the red jersey in controversial circumstances on Saturday, as her Movistar team put the hammer down just as Vollering and her team had stopped for a nature break.

There was lots of post-race chat on Saturday evening, but the events set things up superbly for the final stage up the fabled Lagos de Covadonga.

Vollering said she would attack, and upped the tempo with 10km to run. The move split the lead group, and only Van Vleuten and Gaia Realini (Trek-Segafredo) were able to hold the wheel.

Although she looked typically uncomfortable, Van Vleuten was able to keep tabs on her fellow Dutch rider. But Vollering found an ally in Realini whose decision to up the tempo with 6km to go saw Van Vleuten lose the wheel.

The 40-year-old saw Vollering and Realini disappear up the road, and the former took up the challenge in a bid to claw back the gap of 1:11.

Van Vleuten initially kept the gap at around 20 seconds, but the elastic snapped when they disappeared into the clouds.

Vollering gave it everything and gapped Realini on the final small descent before kicking to the line taking her second stage win of the week and sixth World Tour victory of the season.

It was then a case of whether Van Vleuten could cling on to the red jersey, which she did by nine seconds after digging as deep as she's had to in a long time.

"I feel super happy and super tired," Van Vleuten said. "It’s unbelievable. I fought all the way to the end, knowing that I didn’t have my best legs already early on. Maybe I was paying for yesterday’s effort… But I never gave up. I kept on pushing, knowing that my rivals were also getting tired. It was an amazing team job again today. This Vuelta is a victory for Movistar Team as a whole."

An early trio made it into the day's break: Gladys Velhulst (FDJ Suez), Kathrin Hammes (EF) and Margot Pompanon (St Michel-Auber93), with Olympic champion Anna Kiesenhofer (Israel Premier Tech Roland) setting off in pursuit of them.

They were allowed little advantage however, with SD Worx wanting to make the day as hard as possible to try and gain back the 1:11 advantage Van Vleuten had over Vollering.

Over the first climb, La Collada Moandi, the front group of riders were mainly all together but Van Vleuten was slightly isolated with no team-mates left.

Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon SRAM) chose to attack as the group lulled in anticipation of the final climb and after chasing back into the front group with Loes Adegeest (FDJ Suez), Marlen Reusser (SD Worx) went straight over the top and joined her at the head of the race.

Van Vleuten was isolated at that moment and waited for her whole team to rejoin the front group and make them pace for her instead of trying to reel them back in before the intermediate sprint.

The leaders rolled over the intermediate sprint point as Niewiadoma took the six bonus seconds to Cangues d’Onis, 22km from the finish with Marianne Vos cleaning up the sprint for third, cementing her lead in the green jersey points competition.

Movistar were aided by Jumbo-Visma in the chase and the gap was moved down significantly in the kilometres leading up to the foot of Covadonga.

The Dutch team were trying to protect their GC leader, Riejanne Markus’ podium position in the overall race as Reusser only started the day 48 seconds behind her.

They would be caught with 16km left to ride and 4km from the foot of the dreaded final climb up to Lagos de Covadonga, a climb that has become the arena for legends to be made in the men’s Vuelta ever since its first introduction in 1983.

Movistar got straight to work at the foot of the climb, ready for the climbers to take over and battle it out with Paula Patino and Liane Lippert the last domestiques in action for Van Vleuten.

Mavi Garcia (Liv Racing TeqFind) and Esmee Peperkemp (Team dsm) dropped quickly from Lippert’s hard tempo, but once the German national champion had emptied the tank, SD Worx came to the fore with Niamh Fisher-Black.

The New Zealander wasn’t working for long however, as Vollering decided to strike out early for glory, 10km from the finish line.

Realini responded quickest and jumped straight to her wheel before the group calmed.

The Stage 5 winner waited not even another km before hitting the accelerator again and Fisher-Black played her role perfectly, letting the wheel go out in the middle of the group and forcing Van Vleuten to go out of her comfortable tempo and bridge to the leaders.

With 7km to go we had a quarter at the front: Van Vleuten, Vollering, Realini and Evita Muzic (FDJ Suez), but the French rider would soon be dropped as they hit the toughest gradients of the day.

Realini had a mechanical with 6.5km left to ride, dropping her chain at a bad moment, but with some help from the fans she was back on her bike and back in the leading trio.

As the young Italian got back in she came to the front and Van Vleuten showed her first signs of weakness, losing the wheel slightly for a moment.

A kilometre later with 5.3km until the summit, Realini dropped Van Vleuten with only Vollering able to follow. The gap quickly went out to over 10 seconds as the red jersey holder cracked, but there was still lots of climbing to do.

We were experiencing the final crescendo the race deserved as the gap went out at each kilometre.

Van Vleuten was riding as Van Vleuten does, turning herself inside out, wrestling the bike and trying to save her Vuelta Femenina victory. Vollering dropped Realini in the final downhill section before the line and ascending into the clouds and giving every last morsel of energy for the win on Stage 7 of La Vuelta Femenina, her second stage victory of the week.

The attention turned to Van Vleuten and the clock with the world champion employing all of her experience and hours of training to endure the suffering and salvage the overall lead, eventually finishing 56 seconds back from Vollering.

Even with the 10 bonus seconds on the line, it wasn’t enough to stop Van Vleuten winning her third Vuelta Femenina and 99th professional race.

The final gap to Vollering was nine seconds with Realini moving up to third overall following her fantastic performance at the end of this week 2:41 down.

The 21-year-old Italian would also claim the Queen of the Mountains jersey to add to her stage win the previous day. Vos took both the green points jersey and super combativity prize with Team UAE ADQ winning the team classification.

Vollering will rue the mistake made on Saturday, no matter how you stand on the controversial decision for Movistar to attack her, but she does still hold onto the overall Women’s World Tour leader’s jersey.

She also took the Cima Estela Dominguez prize for finishing first up the final climb, honouring the young Spanish rider who was killed on a training ride earlier this year.

Chapeau to both Vollering and Van Vleuten for providing the thrilling finish this wonderful Grand Tour deserved, with drama right to the line.

The next Women’s World Tour race on the calendar is Itzulia Women.

- - -

Stream the 2023 cycling season live and on-demand on discovery+, the Eurosport app and at eurosport.com.