Thüringen Tour: BikeExchange-Jayco continue winning streak as Manly captures stage 4

Alexandra Manly captured the fourth stage at the Lotto Thüringen Ladies Tour. It was the third stage win for Manly and the fourth consecutive win for her team BikeExchange-Jayco that have won all four opening stages at the six-day race.

Manly sprinted to the victory on the uphill finish on stage 4, a 127k circuit-style race in Schleiz, ahead of Ricarda Bauernfeind (Canyon-SRAM Generation) in second and Marta Lach (Ceratizit-WNT) third.

"This time it was planned but I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to pull it off today. The girls were incredible again. That one was a bit of a blur but so happy to pull it off," Manly said.

"With 50km to go with more of the climbs, I started feeling good and was like, 'I can do this', and I needed to do it because the girls were sacrificing themselves for me so, you've got to finish the job sometimes."

Manly extended her lead in the overall classification as the race heads into stage 5 on Saturday in Gotha. 

"I can still lose the jersey, anything can happen. I had a girl crash into me today and I had to do a bike change, so anything can happen. It's a bike race. I'm going to enjoy [the jersey] while I'm in it."

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