French rider Cedrine Kerbaol broke away to win stage six of the women’s Tour de France on Friday and go second in the overall standings with two days to go.
The 23-year-old raced home up a hill ahead of a pack of around 25 riders that included leader Katarzyna Niewiadoma of Poland.
The sixth stage was decided up the Cote des Fins climb less than 15km from the line when Kerbaol made a late counter-attack and then produced a solo run to the line.
The rider from Brest is the first French women to win a Tour de France femmes stage. She said she was in shock from the effort.
“I gave everything. The effort was so violent that I wanted to vomit,” she said. “I really wanted it, I was so motivated.”
Niewiadoma leads the race by 16sec from Kerbaol while Olympic champion Kirsten Faulkner of the United States is third at 19sec after the rolling 159km stage.
A day after a nasty fall, defending champion Demi Vollering was in the chasing group that came home 21sec behind the winner Friday. The Team SD Worx leader sits in 10th at 1min 19sec.
The race leader suggested after Friday’s stage that Vollering was the key danger.
“I am confident because I feel very fit but I also know that 1:19 in the mountains is not much.”
Vollering was brought down in a 10-rider pile up Thursday, took more than a minute to remount and lost the lead to Niewiadoma.
British cyclist Pfeiffer Georgi was caught in the same crash and her DSM-Firmenich team said Friday she had a fracture in her neck, but will not need surgery.
The standings could all change on Saturday’s 167km run over a series of climbs in the Alps to a summit at the Grand Bornand peak, a 7km climb at five percent closing the day.
The Tour finishes on Sunday with one of cycling’s most challenging climbs up Alpe d’Huez where cold and rain are expected to add to the havoc.
