Rookie Ricarda Bauernfeind on Thursday broke away to take the fifth stage of the Women’s Tour de France, while Demi Vollering, one of the race favorites, slid down the general classification after being hit with a 20-second penalty.
Lotte Kopecky increased her overall lead after finishing fourth, at the front of the chasing pack, because her teammate Vollering, who started the day in second and finished in the same time, was punished for “drafting.”
Vollering suffered a rear-wheel puncture with 65km to go and dropped back to the SD Worx team car. As a race marshall shouted at her to stop, the Dutch rider tucked into the slipstream of the car, which was trying to weave between the vehicles of other teams, as she set off in pursuit of the peloton.
Photo: AFP
After a video review, she was hit with a penalty that dropped her from second to seventh. She is 1 minute, 3 seconds behind Belgian Kopecky, but more importantly slipped 12 seconds behind her great Dutch rival Annemiek van Vleuten, the defending champion, who is fifth.
“I have no clue why I get this penalty,” Vollering told Cyclingnews. “I could not pass when there are two lines of cars next to each other. I dare not to pass because it’s so dangerous. I never knew that this was forbidden, to come after a mechanical.”
Kopecky said her teammate’s punishment was “astonishing.”
Photo: AFP
“This penalty is too severe,” Kopecky said. “Demi took shelter after suffering a puncture, not because she was in difficulty.”
South African Ashleigh Moolman jumped to second place, 49 seconds behind Kopecky.
Bauernfeind, in her first season at the elite professional level, was overjoyed after becoming the youngest stage winner in the two-year history of the event.
“It’s fantastic,” the 23-year-old German told Eurosport.
Bauernfeind broke away on a short climb with 36km to go and then held on as the main contenders in the chasing pack waited for others to lead the pursuit.
She finished 22 seconds ahead of Swiss rider Marlen Reusser and compatriot Liane Lippert with Kopecky fourth, another 10 seconds back, at the head of the pack.
Bauernfeind, just 1.66m tall, also gave her Canyon//SRAM team a first big win after they had hunted down an early breakaway.
“An incredible team ride, we had to chase the first group because I missed it,” she said. “Then it was up to me, and I tried to attack and it worked out.”
The peloton yesterday was to travel from Albi to Blagnac on a largely flat 122km route that would likely favor the sprinters.
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