Fiona Mangan (Soltec Team) has today become the first ever Irish woman to finish one of cycling's Grand Tours. The Limerick rider battled her way to the summit of the monster climb of Lagos de Covadonga to the finish of this year's La Vuelta Femenina.
In doing so, she made Irish sporting history in a season when Irish cycling may yet see two more women in a Grand Tour, as Mia Griffin (Israel Premier Tech Roland) and Megan Armitage (Arkéa Pro Cycling Team) are both in with a strong chance of making their teams' Tour de France line-ups.
However, those possibilities are for another day as today belonged to Mangan, a late-comer to cycling who has developed rapidly in recent seasons and is now a Grand Tour finisher. Her result today - 75th on the stage and 99th overall - is the beginning of a new chapter for Irish cycling; our female athletes now competing in, and finishing, Grand Tours. As such, it was a hugely significant day for Limerick's Mangan (26) and for cycling on the island of Ireland.
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The route organisers of this year's race saved the hardest climbing to the last day as today's stage 7 finished on the summit of the final 13.3km HC climb, averaging 6.8 per cent gradient. Up front, the battle for overall victory came down to the wire.
However, race leader this morning Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar Team) held on to win overall, though in very controversial circumstances given her team's tactics yesterday.
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The woman who led the race starting out yesterday - Demi Vollering (Team SD Worx) - stopped for a call of nature, as did some of her team mates, with 36km completed. At the same time, Van Vleuten's team went to the front and split the race. That resulted in Vollering being caught out and, despite a stage-long chase, she lost the race lead, by 1:11, to Van Vleuten.
Yesterday Van Vleuten went to the finish line in a two-up sprint with the revelation of the race, Gaia Realini (Trek-Segafredo). Realini won the stage and she was to the fore again today. As the final climb kicked up, just three riders emerged at the front: Vollering, Realini and Van Vleuten.
However, Van Vleuten was eventually distanced as Vollering and Realini - the two strongest riders in the race - rode away from her to battle it out for the stage win; Vollering best in that battle. However, while Vollering rode for time all the way to the line in the hope of taking the overall win, she came up short by just nine seconds.
Van Vleuten battled away alone on the upper slopes of the climb, hanging on for 3rd on the stage, some 56 seconds down on stage winner Vollering. And that result sealed the overall win for this year.
Much further down the mountain, Ireland's Mangan was locked into her own battle. She fought all the way to the misty summit, finishing in 75th pace, some 22:54 down on the winner. But her main goal, to finish the race, was achieved. She end La Vuelta in 99th place overall, from 149 starters, some 1:23:42 down on overall victor Van Vleuten.
