American Megan Jastrab won the 7th Trofeo Da Moreno-Mini-Trofeo Alfredo Binda on Sunday in Cittiglio. The race opened the junior women’s Nations Cup for the 2019 season. Jastrab took the win ahead of Gaia Massetti (VC Breganze) and Lea Curinier (France).
Jastrab was part of a breakaway in the opening stages of the junior women’s 69km race. She won the first sprint in Cittiglio, at the 22km mark, and then once back in the main group she continued to respond to attacks that came from the field, and she was briefly in a solo breakaway before being caught on the main climb. The race came down to a bunch sprint in Cittiglio, where Jastrab proved her strength as one of the world’s fastest up-and-coming sprinters.
“The race consisted of 22 kilometers of rolling terrain before we completed three laps around Cittiglio,” Jastrab told Cyclingnews, describing how her race unfolded. “We had two short laps and one final long lap (two added climbs to the short lap). The race was not that eventful or stressful during the two short laps. There were a couple of hard attacks, but everything was brought back quickly.
“During the final lap, I pushed the pace up the first additional climb and established a gap of about 10 seconds by the top of the climb. This was not the plan, but I decided to continue solo with my slight advantage back into town. The field didn’t respond right away and allowed a gap of around 30 seconds to form.
“I was more confident in my sprinting abilities and decided to stay out of the ‘red zone’ going into the final added climb. I made it about halfway through the climb before I was joined by a select group of around 10 riders. Since I didn’t kill myself while I was solo, I joined this group with little effort.
“Over the top of the climb, a couple of riders attacked, but only strung the group out. Going into the finish the group was now around 20 riders and it was ending in a field sprint. Great Britain had a beautiful lead-out train, and I positioned myself behind them going into the final turn with 300m to go.
“The finish is slightly uphill, so I wanted to be patient and not lead out someone else. With around 150m to go, I started my sprint and ended with about a four-bike-length lead over second.”
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