The Debrief #2 - Eva van Agt's First Pro Victory at La Périgord Ladies (UCI 1.1)

Another little promo for a great story on The Debrief:

“Eva from one year ago would have countered that attack immediately, just to show everyone how strong I was. This time, I didn’t.”

Welcome to The Debrief #2. For this edition, I spoke with Eva van Agt (FDJ-United SUEZ) about her first professional victory at La Périgord Ladies (1.1). And of course we also got our hands on the .fit file, so you can nose around the data yourself while reading this article.

For those who follow women’s cycling (and of course you all do. If not, get out!), Eva is probably best known as one of Demi Vollering’s super domestiques. We’ve seen her work in the mountains during Demi’s Giro victory, but also in hilly classics like Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Amstel Gold Race.
Eva is the type of rider who rarely rides for her own chances. She joined FDJ as a highly valued domestique after her time at Visma Lease a Bike. But don’t let that fool you. In this race, Eva showed that years of riding for others had also taught her something else: excellent racing instincts.

The parcours
La Périgord Ladies is a 126 km hilly one-day race starting at Lac de Rouffiac and finishing on a local circuit in Boulazac. After roughly 110 km of racing, the riders enter the final circuit containing La Combe Neuve: 1.8 km at 4.6%. Not exactly a monster climb.
But because the entire race rolls up and down, it’s the perfect profile for a race that can go in almost any direction. And that’s exactly what happened. If you want, you can relive the race here. The livestream is worth checking out. Bad video quality and commentary you can barely understand: pure French cyclisme. It doesn’t get much more French than this.

The race
Eva's victory came together from a combination of circumstances (as for any cycling race). With Karlijn Swinkels and Maeva Squiban at the startline, UAE had two of the main contenders in their team. On paper, Caroline Andersson (Liv Alula Jayco), Kathrin Schweinberger (Human Powered Health) Emma Comte (Cofidis) were also amongst the pre-race favorites. However, the lack of a clear favorite made this race perfect for a break.


Continue reading here!