Mavi García has taken the first ever win for the Movistar Women’s team when she soloed to victory at the Trofeo Villa de Noja in Cantabria, the first round of the Spanish Racing Series.
The Movistar team helped to control the pace of the 130-rider peloton before Mavi García’s attack on the third of four laps of the 90-kilometre race. The Spanish all-rounder quickly built a four-minute lead, which her team-mates defended at the front of the first pursuit group.
Along the way to her win, Garcia also took the QOM classification with her team-mate Lourdes Oyarbide winning the Sprints competition.
The Movistar Team now take on the three Ardennes races – Amstel Gold Race, Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège – which are all part of the UCI Women’s WorldTour.
Mavi García: “I’m really happy, especially considering that this is the Movistar Team’s first ever win. This is a race that I really like, it usually is held first at the Spanish Racing Series calendar, and I claimed the win here two years ago. To be honest, any of my team-mates could have won this race, because all of them rode impressively. With a squad like this, everything becomes easier. When you get one from the team into a break, the rest of the squad can keep an eye on our rivals and it makes easier for you to open a gap. When I went solo I was able to build a huge gap quickly, but I didn’t want to relax – you can have all sorts of problems and it’s not allowed to remain calm until you’ve crossed the finish!
“Leading the Series classification is nice, but it won’t get our minds off the real goal for this season, which is performing strong on international races. Of course we’ll be riding the Spanish Cup’s races, but our priority remains to do well abroad and compete against the best riders in the world. My next goal will be the Ardennes classics – I’ll be riding all three: Amstel, Flèche and Liège – and then get ready for the Emakumeen Bira. It’s finally a WWT event this year and it will be one of my biggest goals in 2018.
“It would have been very difficult for this project to do things even better than right now. We’ve got almost all riders fighting for the best races in Spain until last year aboard, but above that, we’ve got a group with gets on well with each other. The atmosphere is incredible and that makes easier for us to work hard for each other when it’s required. We’re so grateful to Telefónica and the whole Movistar Team for giving us this chance.”
