One day after crashing on stage 5, Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) won stage 6 of the Simac Ladies Tour, with the ten-second time bonification also putting the world champion atop the final general classification.
Led out by her teammate Lorena Wiebes, Kopecky squeezed past lone attacker Silke Smulders (Liv-AlUla-Jayco) on the final metres to take the stage ahead of Wiebes and Marthe Truyen (Fenix-Deceuninck).
Kopecky takes the yellow jersey off the shoulders of Franziska Koch (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) on the final day, winning the GC two seconds ahead of the German champion, with Zoe Bäckstedt (Canyon-SRAM) rounding out the GC podium at seven seconds.
How it unfolded
The final stage in and around Arnhem consisted of two laps of a 45km circuit followed by seven laps of an 8.1km finishing circuit, with QOM sprints on the Zijpendaalseweg 500 metres past the finish on all but the first and last laps. The stage also doubled as the final day in the pro peloton for Christine Majerus (SD Worx-Protime), Audrey Cordon-Ragot, and Alice Wood (both Human Powered Health) who retire after the 2024 season.
Jeanne Korevaar (Liv-AlUla-Jayco), wearer of the QOM jersey since winning the only previous QOM sprint on the VAMberg on stage 2, was first to the top of the Zijpendaalseweg on the second lap to extend her lead.
Ilaria Sanguineti (Lidl-Trek) then went on a solo breakaway. The Italian was up to 1:32 minutes ahead but was reeled in just before the peloton crossed the finish line to begin the first lap of the finishing circuit where Korevaar won the QOM sprint again. Visma-Lease a Bike launched two attacks that were both shut down by SD Worx-Protime, and Korevaar won the third QOM sprint in a row. This put her on 20 points in total, enough to take the polka-dot jersey home in the end.
After an unsuccessful attack by Linda Riedmann (Visma-Lease a Bike), Ruby Roseman-Gannon (Liv-AlUla-Jayco) got away with 44.5km to go and was quickly joined by Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek), Karlijn Swinkels (UAE Team ADQ), and Femke Gerritse (SD Worx-Protime). DSM-Firmenich PostNL took up the chase and caught this move before it could get too far away.
39km from the finish, Smulders launched her solo breakaway. Behind the 23-year-old, a chase group formed that consisted of Wiebes, Riedmann, Rachele Barbieri, and Maeve Plouffe (both DSM-Firmenich PostNL) but was quickly reeled in.
Longo Borghini, Femke Markus (SD Worx-Protime), Roseman-Gannon, and Christina Schweinberger (Fenix-Deceuninck) were the next to jump away, Megan Jastrab (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) and Ilse Pluimers (AG Insurance-Soudal) bridged to the chase group, but then Wiebes also came across, and the group was caught soon after.
Up front, Smulders steadily increased her advantage: With four laps or 32.4km to go, she was 13 seconds ahead, and 29km from the finish, she had 27 seconds in hand. Majerus attacked from the peloton and was followed by Anna Henderson (Visma-Lease a Bike), Lara Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ), Alex Manly (Liv-AlUla-Jayco), Jastrab, and Wood.
With three laps to go, Smulders was ten seconds ahead of this chase group of six, with the peloton at 19 seconds. As the chase group was caught, the speed dropped in the peloton, allowing Smulders to increase her gap. Two laps from the finish, she was 43 seconds ahead and comfortably in the virtual GC lead, having started the stage 21 seconds down on Koch.
It was SD Worx-Protime who took up the chase, though, hoping to win the GC with Kopecky. The team’s all-out efforts brought the gap down to 24 seconds going into the final lap, but Gerritse, Majerus, and Lonneke Uneken eventually dropped back after giving all they had in the chase.
Smulders was still 12 seconds ahead at the 3km mark when Swinkels attacked from the peloton. When Swinkels was caught, the pace went out of the chase for a moment before Koch herself took up the gauntlet and was joined by Femke Markus (SD Worx-Protime) for the last kilometres.
At the flamme rouge, Smulders had a seven-second lead over a peloton that was down to only 19 riders, partly because of a small crash on the penultimate kilometre that took down Manly and Plouffe and split the peloton.
On the finishing straight, Wiebes launched her sprint early with Kopecky on her wheel and Truyen behind that while Barbieri was leading out Koch, but Smulders was still ahead. It looked like Smulders would take the stage, but on the last 20 metres, Kopecky shot past her and threw her bike to win the stage and the GC while Smulders finished fourth on the day and seventh overall.
Having won the stage 1 ITT and then lost all her teammates on stage 2, Zoe Bäckstedt held on to third place overall and won the white U23 jersey while Wiebes’ three stage victories easily won her the green points jersey.
Lukas Knöfler started working in cycling communications in 2013 and has seen the inside of the scene from many angles. Having worked as press officer for teams and races and written for several online and print publications, he has been Cyclingnews’ Women’s WorldTour correspondent since 2018.
