Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta 2021 - Annemiek Van Vleuten wins as Lotte Kopecky takes final stage

Annemiek Van Vleuten won the Ceratizit Challenge by La Vuelta, as Lotte Kopecky launched a superb sprint to snatch the final stage win on Sunday.

Van Vleuten of Movistar essentially secured the red leader's jersey on Saturday's stage three after a stunning 50km solo breakaway, putting over three minutes into her rivals to give her a huge margin of one minute 34 seconds into the final stage.

Liv Racing's Kopecky sprinted to the uphill finish of the 108km flat stage to seal her first win of the four-day tour in Spain.

Trek Segafredo's Elisa Longo Borghini settled for second in the stage, with Anna Henderson in third, four seconds later; while Marlen Reusser of Alé BTC Ljubljana finished second in the general classification with Elise Chabbey over three minutes back overall.

Van Vleuten said in a post-race interview: "It was a beautiful stage. I don't think it was a 'crazy' day, as you might think from the outside; there were just a lot of teams that wanted to go for the stage, including my own companions. Yesterday was a very good day for me and the normal thing is that the objective as a team today would have been simply to keep the general, but with such big differences, in my case I just had to reach the finish line, run calmly.

"It was important that my team-mates had that opportunity to go on the run and seek victory, and Leah [Thomas] has taken advantage of it and has stayed very close. I am glad that this type of stage has been enjoyed by people on TV and that the type of competition we have has been appreciated.

She added: "I always like to race here in Spain, I love the terrain of these races and the fans are always very pleasant. It was a last minute decision to come here, as it was the last mountain race I could run on the calendar. It is nice to come to Spain, to race with this team at home and we are very happy."

With the GC sealed, Movistar took the opportunity to challenge for a stage win and split the peloton early on with 75km to go building up a gap of 45 seconds. By 25km to go only three riders were left in the group, Leah Thomas of Movistar, Anna van der Breggen of SD Worx and Trek Segafredo's Shirin van Anrooij with an advantage of only one minute.

With 10km to go Thomas made a solo lunge and managed to build up a gap of 45 seconds, but it was soon swept away by Kopecky and Longo Borghini when Thomas reached flamme rouge and the route kicked up hill to the finish.

Kopecky caught Thomas with just 250m to go, moving past her uphill as if she was stood still and out-sprinted Longo Borghini for the stage win.