Tour de l'Avenir Femmes: Shirin van Anrooij wins stage 5 and takes overall title

Shirin van Anrooij (Netherlands) soloed to victory on the mountainous stage 5 and captured the overall title on the final day of racing at the Tour de l'Avenir Femmes.

Anna Shackley (Great Britain) crossed the finish line 2:20 back for second and Petra Stiasny Switzerland) was third, another 1:11 off the winning pace. Thursday’s stage winner Gaia Realini (Italy) was only five seconds behind Stiasny and secured fourth place.

Two of the top contenders marked each other across the finish, Fem van Empel (Netherlands) riding just ahead of race leader Antonia Niedermaier (Germany), who were fourth and fifth, respectively, and 6:34 back.

The European champion overtook Realini on the ascent of the middle climb of the queen stage, the Cormet de Roseland, and went into the history books as the first champion of the five-day U23 women's race.

Van Anrooij jumped two spots in the GC with the emphatic victory, going 2:20 clear of runner-up Shackely in the overall standings. Realini moved into third on the overall, while Niedermaier fell to fourth.

The fifth and final stage was the queen stage, with 2,543 metres of elevation gain across 98.3km from the foot of Mont-Blanc in Saint-Gervais to Sainte Foy Tarentaise, a resort in the Savoie. Three classified climbs dominated the route - Col des Saisies (13.7km at 5.1%), Cormet de Roselend (19.9km at 6%) and Montée de Villaroger (4.9km at 5.1%), with the category 2 Villaroger providing a launchpad of 7km to the finish line.

Results

Results powered by FirstCycling