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Rabo-Liv went into the Festival Elsy Jacobs as the team to beat, with five GC wins within the team over the last five years. Marianne Vos won this Luxembourg race in 2011, ’12 and ’13, while Anna van der Breggen was victorious in 2014 and ’15.
Although Marianne Vos started out really strong by finishing 2nd in the prologue, it took a solo attack by Kasia Niewiadoma in the second stage to secure the overall win.
Take a look at our Velofocus photo gallery and some videos to see what happened during the three days of racing in Luxemburg.
The final GC
Festival Elsy Jacobs (2.1) Garnich → Garnich
1
2
3
NIEWIADOMA Katarzyna
VAN VLEUTEN Annemiek
SMALL Carmen
NIEWIADOMA Katarzyna
Rabobank-Liv Woman Cycling Team
Prologue: 2.8 kilometer individual time trial
On Friday night, the Festival Elsy Jacobs kicked off with a 2.8 kilometer individual time trial. A true prologue specialist, Annemiek van Vleuten (Orica-AIS) was the one to watch and indeed she set the fastest time.
Behind her, Marianne Vos (Rabo-Liv) showed she recovered well from her crash in Dwars door de Westhoek a couple of days before by taking second place.
For a while, two women stood in third place; Katrin Garfoot (Orica-AIS) and Ellen van Dijk (Boels-Dolmans) both had a time of 4’00”. Ultimately Van Dijk was awarded third place and Garfoot was placed 4th.
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- Stephanie Pohl (Cervélo-Bigla) warming up for the 2.8 km opening time trial of the 2016 Festival Elsy Jacobs.
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- Boels-Dolmans rider Demi de Jong warming up for her prologue. Both her and sister Thalita de Jong (Rabo-Liv) have started in the three day stage race in Luxembourg.
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- Canadian time trial champion Karol-Ann Canuel (Boels-Dolmans) rides through the yellow flower fields at the 2016 Elsy Jacobs prologue.
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- Australian ITT champion Katrin Garfoot (Orica-AIS) digs deep at the top of the first climb of the 2.8 km time trial prologue of the 2016 Festival Elsy Jacobs.
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- Aussie Kristen Howard of Dutch regional team Maaslandster-Nicheliving-CCN reaches the top of the first climb in the 2016 Festival Elsy Jacobs prologue.
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- Returning winner of the Festival Elsy Jacobs, Marianne Vos (Rabo-Liv) rides towards a second place in the prologue of the 2016 edition.
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- Marianne Vos (Rabo-Liv) congratulates her former teammate and fellow Dutchwoman Annemiek van Vleuten (Orica-AIS) on winning the 2016 Festival Elsy Jacobs prologue.
Results
Festival Elsy Jacobs (2.1) Cessange → Cessange
1
2
3
VAN VLEUTEN Annemiek
VAN VLEUTEN Annemiek
VAN VLEUTEN Annemiek
DE JONG Thalita
Rabobank-Liv Woman Cycling Team
Stage 1: 106.9 kilometer road race
In a cold and wet Steinfort, the first stage started with one big loop, followed by six laps on a local circuit.
It came down to a bunch sprint and Cervélo-Bigla’s Lotta Lepistö crossed the line first with a small gap on the rest of the field. Because of the bonification seconds awarded at the line, she took over the leader’s jersey from Van Vleuten too.
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- Christine Majerus (Boels-Dolmans) checks her radio before the start of the race.
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- The peloton rides the hardest climb of the day during the first stage of the 2016 Festival Elsy Jacobs.
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- Giorgia Bronzini (Wiggle-High5) and Carmen Small (Cervélo-Bigla) work together in the break, while it has started to rain.
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- Lots of rain during the first stage of the 2016 Festival Elsy Jacobs.
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- Lotta Lepistö (Cervélo-Bigla) wins the bunch sprint in the first stage of the 2016 Festival Elsy Jacobs.
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- Home rider Chantal Hoffmann (Lotto-Soudal) arriving at the finish line completely soaked.
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- The top three of the first stage: Lotta Lepistö (Cervélo-Bigla), Amalie Dideriksen (Boels-Dolmans) and Eugenia Bujak (BTC City-Ljubljana).
Boels-Dolmans’ Amalie Dideriksen finished second, riding for her own chances as Christine Majerus had said she was too cold to sprint: “When Christine said she wasn’t going to sprint, I hadn’t really even thought about doing it myself, but in the end, we were changing plans, and I had to do it. I got boxed in and found a way out. I’m definitely happy I could get second,” Dideriksen is quoted on the Boels-Dolmans website.
Stage winner Lepistö said she “was thinking ‘what are we doing here?!'” during the stage, referring to the cold and rain. But a true sprinter always goes for it when she sees the line and that’s just what she did:
Results
Festival Elsy Jacobs (2.1) Steinfort → Steinfort
1
2
3
HENTTALA Lotta
VAN VLEUTEN Annemiek
DE JONG Thalita
SMALL Carmen
Rabobank-Liv Woman Cycling Team
Stage 2: 111.1 kilometer road race
Fortunately, the sun came out again for the second stage, which made it so much nicer to race.
With 35 riders within a minute down from GC leader Lepistö, anything was still possible in the second stage through hilly Luxembourg.
Towards the end of the stage, Niewiadoma launched a monster attack out of a lead group of ten riders. She arrived at the finish line 45 seconds ahead of the thinned out chase group, not only winning the second stage, but also the GC.
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- The peloton tackles a technical descent during the second and final stage of the 2016 Festival Elsy Jacobs.
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- Ten riders break free from the peloton, Christine Majerus (Boels-Dolmans) leads them on the uncategorised climb of the short lap.
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- Kasia Niewiadoma (Rabo-Liv) decides to attack in the final of the race and digs deep in the penultimate short lap.
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- With her solo attack, Kasia Niewiadoma (Rabo-Liv) takes the stage and secures the overall, delivering Rabo-Liv their sixth win in a row at Elsy Jacobs.
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- Katrin Garfoot (Orica-AIS) wins the sprint for second place ahead of Christine Majerus in the 2016 Festival Elsy Jacobs.
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- Lotta Lepistö talks to her Cervélo-Bigla teammates after stage 2; she lost the yellow leader’s jersey, but Carmen Small was able to take the red jersey home.
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- 2016 Festival Elsy Jacobs winner Kasia Niewiadoma (Rabo-Liv) shares a moment with her teammate Anna van der Breggen before the final podium ceremony. Van der Breggen finished third in the GC.
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- A packed podium: the top three of the GC, the top three of the stage, jersey winners Carmen Small (Cervélo-Bigla) and Annemiek van Vleuten (Orica-AIS), plus sponsors and race organisers of the 2016 Festival Elsy Jacobs.
On the Rabo-Liv website, DS Koos Moerenhout explained a little bit about the tactics for his team: “Sunday was the day to make or break our race. Not an easy task, with a difficult course and tough competition. But the team did a great job, we were in control all day and had two of our leaders at the front eventually.”
“When Kasia was on the attack, at one point I contemplated asking Anna to get to Kasia, as the peloton wasn’t far from the chase group. But then the gap opened up again and the situation was perfect for us.”
“If Kasia had been caught, Anna was ready to take over and attack as well. But that wasn’t necessary. Kasia took the stage, the GC and the youth classification. A triple win!”
Here are Christine Majerus (Boels-Dolmans) and Chantal Hoffmann (Lotto-Soudal) discussing how they did at the 2016 Festival Elsy Jacobs in their mother tongue, in this Luxembourg highlights video of stage 2 (with an incomprehensible Luxembourg voice-over):
Results
Festival Elsy Jacobs (2.1) Garnich → Garnich
1
2
3
NIEWIADOMA Katarzyna
VAN VLEUTEN Annemiek
SMALL Carmen
NIEWIADOMA Katarzyna
Rabobank-Liv Woman Cycling Team
And to finish it off, here’s an inCycle video about the lovely winner of this race, Kasia Niewiadoma:
To see and read more about last week’s Festival Elsy Jacobs, check out…
- … Boels-Dolmans’ news articles on Van Dijk’s third place in the prologue, Amalie Dideriksen sprinting to second place in stage 1 and Christine Majerus’ third place in stage 2.
- … Orica-AIS reporting on Van Vleuten’s prologue win and Garfoot’s second place in stage 2 and the overall.
- … Cervélo-Bigla celebrating Lepistö’s win in stage 1.
- … Rabo-Liv’s photo gallery of the 2016 Festival Elsy Jacobs.
- … the official Festival Elsy Jacobs website.
