Sina Frei (Switzerland) gained the ladies’s elite title on the 2024 UEC Gravel European Championships on Sunday, claiming the 102km race in Asiago, Italy. Frei broke away on a climb on the second lap of the race and crossed the end line solo to take victory forward of a dash for second place between Italian teammates Silvia Persico and Alice Maria Arzuffi.
The competitors for the European title performed out the week after the race for the rainbow jersey at Worlds in Belgium was gained by Marianne Vos (Netherlands).
Lorena Wiebes (Netherlands), who’s now clad within the European street race champion jersey, gained the primary girls’s elite European gravel title race in Belgium final 12 months, nonetheless, she was not on the beginning line in Asiago as she was competing on the Simac Girls Tour along with her commerce crew SD Worx-Protime.
The European Championships race performed out over two laps of a 51km, 70% gravel loop beginning and ending in Asiago and delivered the primary qualifying spherical for the 2025 Gravel World Championships to be held in Good. Her Dutch compatriot, Pauliena Rooijakkers, who was third general on the Tour de France in August, was additionally a favorite however was pressured to drop out on the eve of the occasion as a result of sickness.
The 102km course was well-suited to the specialists as a result of quantity of gravel sectors available.
The Italian Squadra Azzurra dominated the opening kilometres of the elite girls’s race with Persico and Arzuffi together with Elena Cecchini, Soraya Paladin and Letizia Borghesi forming a part of the lead group on the course. Additionally within the rising entrance group have been Frei, Tessa Neefjes (Netherlands) and Nathalie Eklund (Sweden).
After finishing the primary of two laps, the entrance group whittled down to simply 5 riders however the Italian crew nonetheless held the higher hand with 4 riders together with Cecchini, Persico, Arzuffi and Paladin, outnumbering an remoted Frei.
A multi-discipline champion, Frei used her off-road expertise and energy to launch a successful assault over a climb with 67km to go on the final lap and soloed throughout the end line to win the 2024 UEC Gravel European Championships.
Though Persico and Arzuffi chased, they may not shut the hole and the pair sprinted for the silver and bronze medals, respectively.
Frei’s victory provides to her lengthy record of profession highlights that embody a silver medal earned on the Gravel World Championships in 2022, two gold and one bronze within the crew relay and quick observe on the Mountain Bike World Championships between 2018 and 2021, silver medal within the elite girls’s cross nation occasion on the Tokyo Olympic Video games and silver medal within the cross-country marathon on the 2024 UCI Mountain Bike Marathon World Championships.
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