Niewiadoma takes Tour de l'Ardeche lead from breakaway

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Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-Sram) continues to make the most of her good form after Sunday's stage win at the Tour de l'Ardeche, joining stage 3 winner Ruth Winder (Team Sunweb) in a two-rider move that got away on the descent off the final climb during Monday's stage 6 and finishing 46 seconds ahead of the field. Winder took her second stage win of the race in the two-up sprint, while Niewiadoma claimed the overall lead by 41 seconds over previous leader Margarita Victoria Garcia (Movistar Team) and Eider Merino (Spain).

Niewiadoma moved into second overall after stage 3 by joining Winder and Garcia in a late-race move that found success, with Winder taking the win ahead of Niewiadoma and Garcia, who took the leader's pink jersey from Winder the next day. Garcia held the jersey until Niewiadoma's daring downhill raid on Monday.

"Today's stage wasn't as hard as previous days, but still we had to put in a lot of effort," Niewiadoma said. "I knew that the climbs wouldn't be ideal to drop the race leader, so I tried my chance on the descent."

Only Winder was able to follow as Niewiadoma pulled away.

"I was focused on every corner, trying to go through as quick and smooth as possible," Niewiadoma said. "I wasn't thinking about what's coming behind me, I was just thinking about what's coming ahead.

"The last 6km were pretty flat so I was happy to have Ruth with me because together we could push really hard to gain some precious seconds on my competitors."

Tuesday's final stage is just 90km long, but with 1,700m elevation, the battle for the overall win of the Tour de l'Ardeche is far form over.