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The 21-year-old sprints to third in Trofeo Alfredo Binda Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig retains UCI WWT young rider lead The Cervélo Bigla Pro Cycling Team continued its impressive form placing Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig on the podium in Trofeo Alfredo Binda. Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio offered valuable support, finishing 8th to place two riders in the top ten. The result by Uttrup Ludwig means she regained the young rider’s jersey in the UCI Women’s WorldTour classification. “They worked as a team protecting the leaders until the final. With a great effort we had three riders in the final with Ash, Marie [Vilmann] and Cecilie and that’s a great effort. Our plan was to have options in the final and it worked out well. The group coming to the finish was very big compared to last year and the team worked well together at this young age and did a leadout and we got a podium and a top ten for Ashleigh. It’s a good day for us and we gain more confidence for the classics in Belgium,” Team Manager, Thomas Campana explained. After several failed breakaway attempts in the final, the race win was contested from a reduced bunch sprint, one much larger than previous years. Coryn Rivera (Team Sunweb) won ahead of Arlenis Sierra (Astana) and Uttrup Ludwig. “Cecilie gets incredible support from the entire team and she carries the pressure really well at this young age to repay the team. Today was another day where she showed she can carry that responsibility, it’s nice to see. It’s a team performance with a great rider making the podium in the end. We also must not forget that we had two sprinters here with Lisa Klein and Lotta Lepistö and they survived until two laps to go which is an incredible performance for them.” Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig The team was so strong today, I have rarely seen something like this. They were all the time in the front, making sure we had food and water while controlling the race the whole time. It was such an amazing team effort and I am so proud to be on this team. I’m overwhelmed, it has been a crazy day and what a start to the season. I felt quite good, I think I had diamonds in my legs today. I’m really proud to wear the young rider’s jersey. I’m up against some world class riders and we’ll just take it one race at a time. I want to make a big shoutout to Marie because at 1.5km to go she was amazing and took me right to the front in the perfect position with 1km to go. She dropped me on Coryn Rivera’s wheel and could not have done a better job, Marie is a world class rider. I’m so proud of the girls, this has been an incredible day. Photo: Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig takes in the applause at after her third place finish at Trofeo Alfredo Binda 2017. A 131 km road race on March 19th 2017, from Taino to Cittiglio, Italy. (Photo by Sean Robinson/Velofocus)​ |
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