Thuringen Rundfahrt der Frauen: Spratt wins queen stage

Amanda Spratt (Orica-AIS) won the queen stage at Thuringen Rundfahrt der Frauen from a two-up sprint ahead of breakaway companion Elena Cecchini (Canyon-SRAM). The pair gained a significant lead on the nearest chasers, and it was enough to put Cecchini in the overall leader’s jersey at the end of the day.

Annemiek Van Vleuten (Orica-AIS) took the chase group sprint for third ahead of Marianne Vos (Rabo-Liv).

"It feel's great to win, it was a target for the team coming into this race to go for stage wins and now we have ticked that box," Spratt said in a team press release. "I love racing this tour each year, last year I came close to a stage win but didn't quite pull it off so it's nice to turn that around this year and get the victory. Today has given me a lot of confidence, it's always good to get a win before a big event."

Stage 6 offered a the longest race of the tour, 130km in Schleiz. The stage was a lumpy ‘queen’ stage with several climbs and Emma Johansson (Wiggle High5) kicked things off by taking the first two QOM sprints of the day, and is now leading the mountain classification.

There were several breakaway attempts but by 50km into the race, the field was still largely together. Vos picked up full points ahead of Van Dijk in the first intermediate sprint.

Several attacks happened over the climbs mid-race that resulted in a decisive breakaway. Joelle Numainville was the last to bridge across to the move that included her teammate Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (Cervelo Bigla), Emma Johansson (Wiggle High5), Annemiek Van Vleuten (Orica-AIS), Tatiana Guderzo (Italian National Team), Elena Cecchini (Canyon-SRAM Racing), Amanda Spratt (Orica-AIS) and yellow jersey Ellen Van Dijk (Boels-Dolmans), along with Coryn Rivera (UHC), Lisa Brennauer (Canyon-SRAM), Eugenia Bujak (BTC City Ljubljana), Natalia Boyarskaya (Russian National Team), Vita Heine (Norway National Team) and Emilia Fahlin (Sweden National Team).

Spratt and Cecchini attacked the group and gained a quick 25 seconds, forcing the remaining riders from that original breakaway to chase. Their gap grew from 40 seconds to over two minutes. It was an advantage to their teams, also, as both riders had teammates, Brennauer and Van Vleuten, higher up in GC that were in the chase behind, and able to stay fresh for the finish with 40km to go.

Moolman-Pasio set a quick pace on the cobbled climbs in pursuit of the two breakaway riders, dragging the chase group behind her, but her efforts failed to put a dent in the leading duo’s time gap, which extended to nearly four minutes with 20km to the line.

Cecchini took the full points in the next two sprints ahead of Spratt, and took full points on the next last QOM sprint ahead of Spratt, while Johansson got the rest of the points from the chase group, which started to split apart in the closing kilometres.

Cecchini and Spratt made it to the finish line with a significant lead on the chasers, and both ended up with successes as Spratt took the stage honours and Cecchini moved into the overall lead.

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