La Madrid Challenge 2022: Grace Brown wins Stage 3 showdown as Annemiek van Vleuten defends red with ease

Grace Brown (FDJ Suez Futuroscope) timed her sprint to perfection to win Stage 3 at La Madrid Challenge from a two-woman break. Inside the last 10km, Brown broke free from a reduced bunch with Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM). Having made it to the final straight and assured that victory would come from one of them, the Australian loitered in the slipstream of the Swiss rider until the last possible moment.

Brown allowed her rival to lead out the sprint, before pulling alongside and grabbing victory on the line. Ad Annemiek van Vleuten chose to drive the pace on the front of the main group in the final 20km in a bid to set up Movistar team-mate Arlenis Sierra, eventually finishing safely in the bunch to maintain her 1’55” lead in the general classification over Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo). Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta'Phenomenal' — Van Vleuten crushes competition to win Stage 2YESTERDAY AT 18:36 The 96.4km stage saw the Madrid Challenge travel due south towards its final destination on Sunday.

The course was shaped by two contrasting categorised climbs. The first, the Alto de Hijas, was a punchy 4km ascent averaging 5.5%. It was raced aggressively, at speed.

Incumbent polka jersey-wearer, but only joint leader in the competition, Lucinda Brand (Trek-Segafredo), was able to add six points to her total while Van Vleuten failed to score. That made Brand the clear leader and meant she needed either to stay within three places of Van Vleuten on the second climb or for the Movistar rider to fail to break the top three positions. The Hoces de Barcena, a long, shallow climb along a wide road cut into the Cantabrian landscape, was not hard enough for either a small break to make good an escape, or for the peloton to be