Vuelta Femenina: Anna van der Breggen routs rivals on steep slopes of Les Praeres for stage 6 victory and moves into GC lead

Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) won stage 6 of the Vuelta Femenina, dominating the finishing climb to Les Praeres, and took the overall lead. She arrived at the summit finish ahead of Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ) and Marion Bunel (Visma-Lease a Bike), who rounded out the podium.

Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) had attacked into the 3.7km finishing climb, but her small gap was quickly closed, and Van der Breggen immediately started setting the pace. On the crazily-steep slopes of up to 27% gradient, she rode rider after rider off her wheel.

With 2.5km remaining to the finish, Blasi, the last rider who could stay with her, had to let go, and Van der Breggen continued alone. Blasi kept the gap small but was unable to come back to Van der Breggen and finished eight seconds behind in second place. Bunel in third place was 29 seconds down.

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Van der Breggen moved from fourth overall to the GC lead with the victory.

"It was a really hard day. A climb like this, I think I’ve never seen that before," said Van der Breggen.

"The girls took care of me all day. I actually wasn’t feeling so good in the beginning of the race because I could still feel the crash from yesterday, but it was getting better and better. So in the end, I had the confidence that I should be able to ride normally. Finishing like this, I’m incredibly happy.

"The climb was special. It started steep and it finished steep. I just tried to get a good pace. You need to pace it well, but it’s also not that long today, tomorrow is way longer. I tried to do well, and luckily, it was enough in the end,” the new Vuelta leader looked back on the climb to Les Praeres.

How it unfolded

A break of four riders went up the road less than 5km into the 106.5km stage: Gaia Masetti (Picnic PostNL), Sterre Vervloet (Lotto-Intermarché), Marine Allione (Mayenne-Monbana-My Pie), and Elisa Valtulini (Vini Fantini-BePink) and quickly built a gap of several minutes. Aniek van Alphen (Fenix-Premier Tech) and Léa Rondel (Mayenne-Monbana-My Pie) tried to bridge to the breakaway but never made it across, instead spending most of the stage in between the front group and the peloton.

The breakaway’s advantage went over five minutes with 57km to go, but with the steep finishing climb coming up, the peloton wasn’t worried and steadily started to reel in the break.

Maëva Squiban (UAE Team ADQ) crashed with 43km to go and had to abandon the race due to her injuries. Her teammate Mavi García had crashed in the neutral zone before the real start, and Blasi also went to the ground, but they could both continue the race.

Having started the stage 11 points behind Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) in the points classification, Franziska Koch (FDJ United-Suez) and her teammate Eva van Agt attacked from the peloton just before the intermediate sprint with 23.4km to go. Kopecky’s teammate, stage 5 winner Mischa Bredewold, was attentive, followed their move, and took the remaining sprint points to defend Kopecky’s lead.

Just 18km from the line, Masetti attacked her breakaway companions, and only Vervloet went after her, quickly coming back to make it a front duo – but they were also caught with 11.6km to go.

As rain showers started to pour down, the lead-outs into the finishing climb began, with two short climbs and a technical descent before the 3.7km climb with an average gradient of 13.4% and stretches going up to 27%.

Kerbaol went into the climb first and opened up a small gap, but Van der Breggen quickly closed her down and then took over the pacing. The peloton had already been reduced to around 30 riders before the climb, and Van der Breggen’s steady but hard pace quickly split this group.

Very soon, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto), Blasi, Kerbaol, Bunel, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (AG Insurance-Soudal), and Juliette Berthet (FDJ United-SUEZ) were the only ones left with Van der Breggen. At the 3km mark, only Niewiadoma-Phinney and Blasi were still on the 36-year-old’s wheel, and 500 metres later, she was all alone.

Blasi never lost Van der Breggen out of sight while Niewiadoma-Phinney dropped back, eventually finishing in tenth place. Bunel finished third, Berthet was fourth at 36 seconds, Monica Trinca Colonel (Liv AlUla Jayco) fought her way back from behind to finish fifth, 38 seconds back.

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