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Wiggle High5 Pro Cycling’s Jolien D’hoore and Chloe Hosking finished an incredible first and second in the Madrid Challenge by La Vuelta, the final event of the 2016 Women’s WorldTour, on the Paseo del Prado in the centre of the Spanish capital. D’hoore was expertly led into the finishing straight by Hosking, but both were separated as riders from rival teams launched their sprints in all directions. Hosking followed a move from former World Champion Marta Bastianelli (Alé-Cipollini), while D’hoore bided her time before launching herself up the middle of the road. 
Hosking passed Bastianelli as the line approached, but D’hoore was already celebrating her victory more than a length ahead. “It was quite a fast and nervous race, like a crit should be!” D’hoore said afterwards. “It wasn’t totally flat, it was a but up and down, and that made it hard in the end. We decided that I should do the sprint, and that Chloe would lead me out, and that’s what we did. “But I lost Chloe’s wheel just before the last corner, with 400 to go or something, and then I tried to steak in on the inside of the corner; there was a gap on the right side so I just started my sprint.” The 87km race, around the fast, predominantly flat 5.8km circuit, was subject to numerous attacks from the very start. Wiggle High5 Pro Cycling’s Amy Pieters and Audrey Cordon-Ragot were involved in several moves, and were on hand to police others, along with Spanish teammate Anna Sanchis. It was not until the latter stages though, that a break managed to get more than a few seconds clear, when Claudia Lichtenberg (Lotto-Soudal) and Simona Frapporti (Lensworld-Zannata) escaped. The two riders were able to get around 30 seconds clear, but were steadily reeled in on the final lap as the dominant sprinters’ teams worked together to chase them down. 
A huge turn on the front from Wiggle High5’s former two-time Junior World Champion Lucy Garner set Pieters, Hosking and D’hoore up into the final corners and, as the other sprint teams began their lead outs, the Belgian and Australian proved themselves to be the class of the field. “There was a big train from Boels-Dolmans, there were there with the whole team in front, and then Amy Pieters was behind them, then Chloe and me,” D’hoore explained. “Amy did a really amazing job to keep us in front, for the whole last lap. “She also caught the two leaders in the last lap. She was super strong, and I think without Amy we wouldn’t have been there in the end. “Audrey also did an amazing job. Their job was to be in breakaways and to just be there in the race, so me and Chloe could save ourselves. Audrey, and Lucy - and also Anna for her home crowd - we did a perfect team race! “I can’t remember the sprint really, but I just went full gas on my big chainring, and I just went!” The Madrid Challenge by the Vuelta is D’hoore’s first victory since returning from the Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil, where she claimed the Bronze Medal in the Omnium on the track. The result shows that the former Belgian Champion is regaining the road legs that saw her take more wins that any other rider in the women’s peloton in 2015, and means that she will be one of the big favourites for next month’s World Championships in Doha, Qatar. “It was already a lot better than last week, and I still have four weeks to go until Qatar, so that should be perfect,” she smiled. 
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