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Video: Marianne Vos wins Tour of Flanders to consolidate World Cup lead

Dutch rider proves stronger than rivals in finale... also, footage from Elisa Longo Borghini's Trodeo Binda win last week...

Marianne Vos has extended her lead in the World Cup by winning the Tour of Flanders on a day when cycling’s attitude towards women came under scrutiny on two fronts – first, the lack of live TV coverage of the race, secondly Peter Sagan’s inappropriate touching of a podium girl following the men’s race.

It’s the first time Rabobank’s Vos has won the race, thereby plugging a big gap in her CV, but instead of being able to watch even the closing kilometres of the race live – at a time when the men’s race was yet to explode into life, and with cameras already in situ on key points of the course  – fans instead had to turn to Twitter to follow what was happening.

Happily, a short report of the race has now been posted to YouTube, jointly produced for the UCI by Spokesmen and Deadline Productions, showing how the race played out. A more extensive half hour highlights programme will be produced for TV, as will happen for all other rounds of the World Cup.

Rabobank’s Vos had to fight off a series of attacks from the three other women who got off the front with her – Orica-AIS rider Emma Johansson, Elisa Longo Borghini of Hitec Products and Ellen van Dijk of Specialized–Lululemon – before outsprinting them at the end.

Last week, amid atrocious conditions in the hills above Lake Maggiore on the border of Italy and Switzerland, Longo Borghini had attacked in the rain to score a fine solo win, her first World Cup victory, which you can watch in the video below - the commentary is in Italian, the 55-minute film being in effect the highlights programme screened on RAI Sport 2 last Sunday.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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4 comments

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bigant | 10 years ago
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I believe she pinched Eddie Merckx's bum on the podium.

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aslongasicycle | 10 years ago
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Looked like a more exciting race too. Spartacus was incredibly impressive, but save for his digs on the last climbs, nothing much happened.

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MartyMcCann | 10 years ago
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Surely it is now time we started referring to Eddy Merckx as the "male Marianne Vos" rather than the other way round...
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CraigS | 10 years ago
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Such a shame - it could have been a perfect model for TV, set the women off first and cover the finish before the action starts in the men's race. All the logistics are in place, you're only staging one race and the audience is ready and waiting.

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