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Niewiadoma gets the Women’s WorldTour monkey off her back at Trofeo Alfredo Binda

Karol-Ann Canuel very active in the mix to come 8th

March 18, 2018
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Polish rider Katarzyna Niewiadoma finally got her first Women’s WorldTour win on Sunday at the 20th Trofeo Alfredo Binda-Comune di Cittiglio in Italy. After four podiums last year to place third overall in the individual standings, Niewiadoma made the switch from WM3 Energie to Canyon-SRAM this season. Having come second in the first race, Strade Bianche, Niewiadoma now leads the WorldTour for the second time in her career. Canadians Alison Jackson and Karol-Ann Canuel were part of the action in the third race of the 2018 calendar.

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The Course
The riders would roll from Taino, enter a 37-km lap, and then after the crossing the finish line in Cittiglio, face the first of four 18-km circuits, each containing the Orino climb. In total the race was 131-km. Rain pelted the peloton.

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The First Half of the Race

Early into the route sat the first two intermediate sprint. It was last week’s Ronde van Drenthe mountains classification winner “Action” Jackson who claimed the first one, earning 100 Euros. Last year’s winner Coryn Rivera (USA/Sunweb) suffered a crash between sprints three and four. All four intermediate sprints went to different riders.

After 53-km an intrepid solo rider final broke away but was lassoed soon after. More back luck for Rivera and she had trouble getting back to the peloton.



The Cittiglio Circuits

On the second of the 18-km circuits Italian Soraya Paladin of Alé Cipollini dashed away, but Movistar hauled her back. On the Orino Alena Amialiusik–third place in 2014–Ane Santesteban and Elinor Barker bolted but Barker couldn’t hang on as the race entered Lap 3.

Canuel attacked on the Casale climb with 31-km to go, drawing Elisa Longo Borghini and Katarzyna Niewiadoma. This chase group ballooned to ten before the third passage of Orino. Canuel’s Boels-Dolmans American teammate Megan Guarnier, winner of the first Women’s World Tour, and Małgorzata Jasinska of Movistar were able to bridge over to the duo still out front.

Last Lap
Guarnier and Jasinska did most of the work in the quartet, which went into the bell lap with a 51-second lead. Sunweb and Wiggle High5 did most of the chasing. It took a surge from Niewiadoma to make the field come together with 13-km remaining.

Niewiadoma, Canuel and Longo Borghini were the next to flash away. Although this new leading trio couldn’t stay away for long, it drew more riders before the final trip up Orino. A high-powered gang of 13 couldn’t contain Niewiadoma on the Orino.

The Pole crested and descended alone, first three-time winner Marianne Vos her closest pursuer and then Mitchelton-Scott’s Lucy Kennedy.

Niewiadoma would not be denied, making it the first race in the 2018 WorldTour not won by a Dutch rider from Boels-Dolmans. Besides her four WorldTour podiums in 2017, the Pole had one in 2016 to come 11th all around and win the youth division in the inaugural season.

World champion Chantal Blaak was runner-up and Vos third.

Canuel’s eighth place is her best one-day WorldTour race individual result. Leah Kirchmann was 44th and Jackson 58th.

2018 Trofeo Alfredo Binda-Comune di Cittiglio
1) Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Poland/Canyon-SRAM) 3:32:54
2) Chantal Blaak (The Netherlands/Boels-Dolmans) +0:22
3) Marianne Vos (The Netherlands/WaowDeals) s.t.
8) Karol-Ann Canuel (Canada/Boels-Dolmans) +0:23