Steaming toward the Willunga township finish line of stage 1 of the Santos Women’s Tour Down Under on Saturday, with just a few kilometres to go it was still touch and go whether Alessia Vigilia’s lengthy solo effort would be enough to clinch her first Women’s WorldTour victory.
The gap was still sitting at around 30 seconds at 4km to go and behind the 26-year-old Italian a couple of crashes in the bunch also had the potential to slightly slow momentum. The new Uno-X Mobility rider kept her head down, soaking up the encouragement from her team on the radio and daring to keep the hope of a break of nearly 100 kilometres alive.
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