Columbia-Highroad’s Judith Arndt has blasted back into the overall lead of the Bira stage race in Spain after taking her second victory in three days.  Arndt was the fastest in a short but steep hilly time trial through the town of Iurreta on Saturday morning, and with two stages left to race now leads Italian Fabiana Luperini by seven seconds.

Already the winner of stage one in a 19-rider bunch sprint, Arndt’s success is all the more impressive given she only returned to racing in the GP Montreal on May 30th after breaking both her collarbone and her left wrist this spring.  “It’s all very unexpected because of all those injuries, but I’m also really pleased I could do so well,” Arndt said afterwards.  “There are a lot of top class riders here, so to be able to come back and beat them is very good for my confidence. But it’s fun, too!  My tactics were very straightforward in the hilly time trial, just go all out from the start because even if there were a lot of changes of gradient, it was only just over two kilometres long.”

Arndt’s collarbone no longer troubles her, although she says that her wrist, which she broke in April, remains painful. “My wrist injury still hurts a little during the races, and more afterwards, but so long as I’m careful,  I’m ok.  I went through a tough time psychologically this spring after doing so much training on the rollers with no racing, and I’m still nervous sometimes during races because the doctors say that I could break my wrist if I crash on it.”

While very satisfied with her achievements, Arndt says that she will do her best to defend the yellow leader’s jersey and see if she can take her first stage race win since the Tour of Tuscany last September.  “There are two stages to go and they’re both undulating, so I’ll have to be equally careful in both. My lead’s less than 10 seconds and anything could happen.  But in any case I’m not the only rider Columbia-Highroad has for the overall, so when it comes to defending the lead, we’ve got several different options. That could be very important.”