Strade Bianche Donne 2023: Demi Vollering beats team-mate Lotte Kopecky in thrilling sprint finish

Dutch star Demi Vollering took the Strade Bianche Donne title on Saturday in thrilling fashion over defending champion Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx) and Kristen Faulkner (Team Jayco-AIUla).

As the race reached the 45km to go mark Karlijn Swinkels (Jumbo-Visma) made a move up the road and a little bit later on she was joined by Faulkner.

However that little group didn’t last long as the American decided to leave Swinkels behind and go it alone.

As Faulkner kept up an impressive pace an interesting battle was taking place further down the road as some of the bigger names jostled for position.

Vollering was the one who eventually broke through and she began the pursuit of Faulkner.

But defending champion Kopecky wasn’t done and she pushed away from the group and she joined team-mate Vollering as they began to hunt down the American.

Faulkner did her best to hold off the two SD Worx riders but she was always playing a losing game and with under 1km to go she was caught on the final climb.

And as it did last year with Kopecky and Annemiek van Vleuten it came down to a sprint, this time between Kopecky and Vollering.

On this occasion it was Vollering who threw her bike at the perfect time to take victory over her team-mate in a tense finish.

More to follow…