The Finnish sprinter benefited from a faultless lead-out from her teammates inside the final five kilometers of the race before unleashing an unstoppable turn of speed to take her first win of the season on her first day of racing and continue EF Education-Oatly’s stunning start to 2025 after Noemi Rüegg’s stage and overall win at the Santos Tour Down Under.

The team showed great fight and spirit after a crash took down several riders including Alison Jackson, and Cédrine Kerbaol. Both escaped with minor scrapes and were able to get up and continue the race.

“We crashed, with Alison and Cédrine going down and we all had to chase from that and use energy,” Lotta said at the finish.

“We played the poker game and in the sprint, I just told the riders to stick to the left-hand side because we had the horsepower. It was going fast on the right and there was a little bit of panic but we were coming faster and we passed them at the final roundabout, just as we had planned. We executed the plan so it’s super nice,” a jubilant Lotta said at the line.

Coming into the final turn, Lotta was expertly positioned and had enough speed in her legs to blast down the finishing straight and take the victory.

“It was just the final 100 meters, so my part was quite easy,” she said.

“I’m very happy. Winning my first race of the season, this is the first time it’s happened in my career so, it’s quite nice,” she added.

Sport director Carmen Small paid tribute to the riders’ patience.

“We really gambled that the other teams would chase for us. They did, and we just needed to play it cool because the gap to the break gradually came down. It was all about patience today. We had a good tactic for the sprint and the girls were able to execute exactly what we talked about. It doesn’t get better than that.”