The second and final day of racing at Tour de la Semois saw attacking racing from Team dsm-firmenich PostNL, who were involved in every single attack that went, rotating through well and riding strongly as a team. Eventually Francesca Barale escaped in a move. For a while things were held steady by the peloton but coming into the final 20 kilometres the gap suddenly increased and it looked as if Barale’s group could fight it out for the win. However, things became tactical and their advantage tumbled as quickly as it grew. Undeterred, Barale followed and then countered a move on the last climb, going all-out to try and take the win, only being caught in the last 500 metres. After some good positioning behind Elise Uijen and Megan Jastrab gave everything they had on the uphill kick where Uijen took seventh, the same position she would finish on GC, while Jastrab finished one place behind in eighth.
Barale expressed: “I think it was a good day overall. We were in every move that went. Firstly with Megan and Elise in a big group then I got away in a group. We were away with around 60 kilometres to go I think, and the group was working well actually but since four of us could win still GC it was quite tactical. Going into the last lap I went hard on the first climb to still have a gap because it was going down quickly. We actually had two minutes so I thought we would get to the finish, but then on the last lap we were looking at each other a bit and the gap came down. I went with an attack over the top and tried everything on the last kicker with one kilometre to go, but I got caught with around 500 metres left around the last corner. Elise then sprinted as best as she could after that, with the group coming really quick from behind. Overall I think we can take some confidence from this as we were always in the right moves and we rode strongly together. The last Italian races will be be on courses like this so hopefully we can take this riding with us, but it also feels a bit of a missed opportunity to be caught so close to the finish.”