Le Grand-Bornand, France: Belgium’s Justine Ghekiere won the penultimate stage of the women’s Tour de France after climbing clear for victory on an Alpine mountain on Saturday.
Ghekiere finished ahead of France’s Maeva Squiban and Dutch rider Demi Vollering after a seventh stage featuring a 167km run over a series of climbs in the Alps to a summit at Le Grand-Bornand peak.
Poland’s Katarzyna Niewiadoma came home fourth and kept the race leader’s yellow jersey.
It was a second career win for Ghekiere, of the AG Insurance-Soudal team, and she consolidated her grip on the race’s best climber jersey. France’s sixth stage winner Cedrine Kerbaol lost some time in the gruelling finish to come in 18th. She now stands third in the general ranking behind Niewiadoma and the Netherlands’ Puck Pieterse, who is 27 seconds behind the Pole.
Defending champion Vollering had been leading the race until a fall Thursday held her up for over a minute. The Dutch veteran is still a contender in eighth at 1min 15sec. Niewiadoma said she would not focus on her Dutch rival.
“I won’t focus on Demi but only on myself. I’m going to have to relax and recover well this evening to be ready for tomorrow because the stage looks awful,” she said.
Today’s eighth and final stage is another for the climbers: a 149km mountain run from Le Grand-Bornand to Alpe d’Huez with it’s 21 shoelace turns. It features a 13.8km ride to the summit at a gradient of 8.1 percent, the riders also having to crest the Col du Glandon over 19.7km at 7.2 percent. Poor weather is forcast with cloud and rain likely to influence the final day’s proceedings.
Nys wins again as Vingegaard holds Tour of Poland leadBelgian Thibau Nys won his third stage on the Tour of Poland on Saturday while Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard held on to the overall lead with only today’s flat stage remaining. The 21-year-old Lidl-Trek rider Nys was among the small clutch, along with Vingegaard, on the final climb and stole in at the last in what has been a break-out Tour for him. The 183-kilometre sixth stage began at Wadowice, the birthplace of Pope John Paul II, and the short final climb ended with the rookie adding to his wins on similar terrain on Monday and Thursday. In second place overall Diego Ulissi of UAE Team Emirates gained six seconds on Vingegaard of Visma, who leads by a slender 13sec ahead of Sunday’s seventh and final stage with another Visma man Wilco Kelderman a further seven seconds off the pace.
Just over three weeks after coming second to Tadej Pogacar on the Tour de France, Vingegaard is poised to clinch the race today.
The final leaves from the Wieliczka Salt Mine and culminates at Krakow, where three laps of a downtown circuit should produce a sprint finish.