Dropped, Attacked, Won: Blasi Scoops Amstel Gold Race with Inspired Move

Young Spanish rider Paula Blasi shocked both herself and the peloton with a stomping performance on Sunday, landing the biggest success of her career in the Amstel Gold Race Ladies.

The 23 year old is in her first full season as a WorldTour rider and was only called up as late replacement for her UAE Team ADQ squad. She struggled early on with the chaos and fight for positioning on the tight, technical roads of the race, and decided getting clear was her best chance of performing.

She did just that and, less than 30 kilometers later, actually took her first WorldTour win.

She finished 27 seconds ahead of chasers Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM Zondacrypto) and Demi Vollering (FDJ United – Suez), and crossed the line in clear shock.

That sense of disbelief was still evident minutes later when she was asked what winning the Amstel Gold Race meant to her.

“I don’t know actually right now,” she answered. “I wasn’t even supposed to be here. I just signed up yesterday for the race because we had some injuries, some sickness.

“Five minutes before I did the breakout [breakaway], I was dropped. So I just came back and I said, ‘OK, let’s give it a go, try to help the team’. And then suddenly I found myself in the front.”

‘The bunch is crazy’

The race is the first of the three Ardennes Classics and while it is not a monument, it remains a very prestigious event.

Five riders went clear early on but were caught with 67km remaining. Further attacks thinned out the number of contenders and Nienke Vinke (SD Worx-Protime) then made her move with 26km to go. Blasi set off in pursuit and the duo joined up, with the Spaniard then going solo on the Cauberg with about 23km left.

She had 49 seconds over Vinke with 3km remaining, just before the final ascent of the Cauberg, and was a further ten seconds ahead of the peloton.

Behind, Elise Chabbey drove the pace to try to set up teammate Vollering for the climb. The Dutchwoman was the only one able to stay with Niewiadoma when she put in a big surge on the steep section, with Vollering moving to the front when the slopes lessened and doing most of the work from there to the finish.

Niewiadoma edged past her in the sprint to the line, but Blasi was well ahead and sealed her biggest win.

Given her discomfort in the peloton on the tight, technical roads, how did she pull off such a big result?

“I don’t even know,” she admitted. “Since the beginning of the race I said to the team that I was struggling quite a bit with positioning as it is my first race here in the Ardennes. I was a bit nervous. It was nothing like I have done before. This bunch is quite crazy, it is quite difficult to be in the front which is actually the most important part.

“I was struggling a bit, I was very far behind so I was kind of playing with this, being dropped, coming back, being dropped, because I was all the time in the front.

“So at one point I said, let’s be in the front. If you can go in the breakaway better, then you won’t have to fight for position.”

The tactic worked, and in a way not even she believed was possible.