Lisa Brennauer secured the overall victory in Madrid ©Twitter/UCI_WWT

Lisa Brennauer was crowned winner of the Madrid Challenge by La Vuelta for the second successive year after defending her race lead on the final stage in the Spanish capital.

Brennauer topped the general classification heading into the 100-kilometre final stage, following her time trial success yesterday.

The stage featured 17 laps of a 5.9 kilometre circuit, with eight intermediate sprints offering bonus seconds.

Brennauer continued to secure key bonus seconds during the stage with the support of Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling team.

Her closest rival Elisa Longo Borghini sought to close the gap to the race leader, with the Italian launching an attack after one of the intermediate sprints.

She opened up an advantage of 20 seconds, which helped her secure maximum bonus seconds on two sprints.

Brennauer preserved her advantage by winning the sprints from the peloton, who slowly closed on Longo Borghini.

The Italian’s effort was ultimately brought to an end, with the stage concluding with a bunch sprint.

Italy’s Elisa Balsamo triumphed in the sprint finish in a time of 2 hours 16min 49sec, which gave her a reward of 15 bonus seconds.

Dutch rider Lorena Wiebes earned 10 seconds after finishing as the runner-up, with Brennauer receiving five for third.

The German rider completed back-to-back victories at the International Cycling Union (UCI) Women’s WorldTour race, finishing 12 seconds clear of Longo Borghini.

Wiebes placed third overall, one second further back.

The race concluded the coronavirus impacted UCI Women’s WorldTour season.