Saturday 7 March 2015 15:52, UK
Britain’s Lizzie Armitstead continued her strong start to the season by finishing second in the inaugural women’s Strade Bianche in Italy on Saturday.
The race was won by Armitstead’s Boels-Dolmans team-mate Megan Guarnier, of the United States, who escaped from a select group in the closing kilometres and hung on to win by 37 seconds in Siena.
The chasers came over the finish line in ones and twos, but it was Armitstead, winner of the Ladies Tour of Qatar last month and third at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad last weekend, who claimed second place after outsprinting Italy’s Elisa Longo Borghini.
The 103km race, which runs on the same day as the men’s edition, followed a rolling route through the Tuscan hills and contained five sections of gravel, or white roads, from which the event takes its name.
Result
1 Megan Guarnier (USA) Boels-Dolmans, 2:59:17
2 Lizzie Armitstead (GB) Boels-Dolmans, +37secs
3 Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) Wiggle Honda, same time
4 Ashleigh Moolman (RSA) Bigla Pro Cycling, +39
5 Anna van der Breggen (Ned) Rabobank-Liv, +46
