Tour de France Femmes stage 5: Ricarda Bauernfeind takes victory with strong solo move

It was another solo victory for a young rider on stage 5 of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, as 23-year-old Ricarda Bauernfeind (Canyon-SRAM) held off the chasing favourites to take a big win in Albi.

After Canyon-SRAM worked to reel in the day’s early breakaway, Bauernfeind attacked with 36km to go and took advantage of the discord in the chasing group to pull out an impressive lead, which she defended all the way to the finish.

SD Worx and Movistar eventually started to chase more deliberately behind, but could not reel back the German. Marlen Reusser (SD Worx) and Liane Lippert (Movistar) chipped off the front of the group in the finale to pick up second and third, whilst Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx) finished fourth to maintain her lead in the overall standings.

“To be honest I still can’t believe it, it’s just incredible,” Bauernfeind said at the finish. “I had the support from my teammates, from the cars behind and all the partners. Everyone helped me and supported us and it was just an incredible team ride, I would say.

“We had to chase the first group because we missed it, and my teammates did such a fantastic job. Then it was up to me and I tried to attack, and it worked out.”

In the absence of Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx), who did not start the stage suffering from stomach problems, the hopes of a sprint finish dissipated and many teams raced aggressively from the start, putting several sprinters in trouble early and setting up for an attacking finale.

Despite no big GC action, Demi Vollering (SD Worx) did lose 20 seconds on the stage after being handed a time sanction for a drafting behind her team car when trying to return to the peloton after a mechanical.

Canyon-SRAM first fail, then succeed

The morning and the early part of the stage were marred by a number of abandons, with Wiebes and Jenny Rissveds (Coop-Hitec Products) not starting, whilst the likes of Kata Rysz (Lifeplus-Wahoo), Gabrielle Pilote Fortin (Cofidis) and Évita Muzic (FDJ-SUEZ) climbed off in the first hour of racing.

As the peloton rolled out of Onet-le-Château for the official start, the pace was high as soon as the flag dropped, with many riders struggling at the back just a few kilometres into the stage. In the fight for the breakaway, the peloton briefly split in the opening kilometres, but with riders like the polka dot jersey Anouska Koster (Uno-X) and white jersey Cédrine Kerbaol (Ceratizit-WNT) in group two, things were quickly brought back together.

After 15km, a more deliberate breakaway group then emerged at the front, with 11 riders going clear of the bunch. It was a strong move, including the likes of Mischa Bredewold (SD Worx), Paula Patiño (Movistar) and Amber Kraak (Jumbo-Visma), though the likes of dsm-firmenich, Lidl-Trek and importantly Canyon-SRAM had all missed out.

The leaders worked well together over the next 20km. However, because of the strength of this group, and because several key teams had missed out, they were kept on a very tight leash, and were only 30 seconds ahead of the peloton after 50km of racing. Meanwhile, behind the peloton, a sizeable gruppetto had already formed three minutes down on the main group, including the likes of Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek), Megan Jastrab (dsm-firmenich) and Alison Jackson (EF Education-TIBCO-SVB).

The breakaway lingered out front for much of the middle part of the stage, but as the race hit the trio of categorised climbs on the route, the efforts of Lidl-Trek and Canyon-SRAM saw the group reeled back in at the base of the Côte de Najac. The attacks started almost as soon as the catch was made, with the GC riders coming to the front and dropping many weaker climbers, including Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma) and the polka dot jersey Anouska Koster. Clearly not tired from her exploits, stage 4 winner Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Deceuninck) clipped off the front near the top of the climb to try to reclaim the Queen of the Mountains jersey.

Whittled down to around 30 riders, this new main group pushed on into the final 40km of the stage. With 38km to go, after the penultimate categorised climb, Riejanne Markus (Jumbo-Visma) put in an attack on the flat, trying to use her time trialling skills to get away, but found it difficult to snap the elastic. The next rider to try was Bauernfeind, initially followed by Claire Steels (Israel-Premier Tech Roland), but the young German quickly dropped Steels, and pulled out a gap of 50 seconds as the pace in the main group just lulled briefly.

With 25km to go, Bauernfeind’s lead was up to a minute and a half with no one taking up the chase properly behind yet. She crested the final climb solo, leaving just a rolling run-in between her and the line in Albi. After the final climb, the main group spurred into action, forcing Marlen Reusser to get on the front for SD Worx and start trying to chase Bauernfeind down. With 15km to go, her gap had dropped to 1:05, and soon fell to 40 seconds, where it hovered for several kilometres.

Going into the final 5km, Reusser and Liane Lippert (Movistar) clipped off the front of the chasing group to try and hunt down Bauernfeind themselves and take the pressure off of Vollering and Van Vleuten behind. However, they still trailed the leader by 25 seconds with 2km to go and with only two riders chasing - rather than a whole group - the situation played into Bauernfeind’s hands. Going under the flamme rouge and with a second professional win within touching distance, she held a 25-second lead over the chasers.

In the end, Reusser and Lippert failed to get any closer to the German, allowing Bauernfeind to cross the line solo in Albi and take the biggest win of her nascent career. Reusser and Lippert stayed away for second and third respectively, whilst Lotte Kopecky finished fourth and continues to lead the general classification.

We’ll be showing live and on-demand coverage of all eight stages of this year’s Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift from Sunday, July 23 to Sunday, July 30, plus daily expert analysis on The Breakaway. Head over to GCN+ now to check the start times of each broadcast so that you don’t miss out on a moment of the action! As always, territory restrictions will apply.