La Vuelta Femenina 2024: Evita Muzic outsprints Demi Vollering to victory in thrilling Stage 6 finish

Evita Muzic (FDJ-Suez) put in a heroic display to hold off Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) and sprint to victory on Stage 6 of La Vuelta Femenina.

The Frenchwoman stuck close to Vollering on the final climb and timed her attack with 75 metres to go to hit the front and take the win.

It was the 24-year-old’s fifth career victory, which now sits neatly in her palmarès alongside her Giro d'Italia final stage triumph in 2020.

Vollering successfully defended her lead in the general classification with her second-place finish keeping Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) 56 seconds behind in the race for the red jersey.

Marianne Vos (Team Visma-Lease a Bike) added to her lead in the points classification with maximum points in the day’s intermediate sprint to go into Stage 7 37 points ahead of Blanka Vas (SD Worx-Protime).

Karlijn Swinkels (UAE Team ADQ) also retained her Queen of the Mountains jersey, but is now tied on points with general classification leader Vollering.

Before the start of the stage, Lidl-Trek’s Gaia Realini withdrew due to “minor concussion” as well as pain in her elbow and chest from a crash the day before. In addition, Canyon//SRAM’s Kasia Niewiadoma also didn’t start due to illness.

During the stage, a crash in the 63rd kilometre forced Aniek van Alphen (Fenix-Deceuninck) to abandon the race after a bottle caught her back wheel in her approach to the feed zone.

Multiple attacks from within the peloton kick-started the action, but it was an attack from Claudia San Justo (Eneicat - CMTeam) and Laura Molenaar (VolkerWessels Women's Pro Cycling Team) which sparked the lengthiest breakaway of the day with 85km to go.

They were joined by Fauve Bastiaenssen (Lotto Dstny Ladies) a couple of kilometres later, before their ranks increased to four with the addition of Aurela Nerlo (Winspace). The four remained as a breakaway group for much of the race before they were dispersed with just under 20km left.

San Justo and Nerlo were the first to be absorbed by the peloton but Bastiaenssen and Molenaar were determined to stay ahead for as long as possible. The two battled with each other as well as the rapidly approaching peloton and played cat and mouse before a last-ditch attack from Bastiaenssen saw her survive the longest as Molenaar was next to rejoin the bunch.

With Bastiaenssen caught with 17.7km to go, focus then turned to the intermediate sprint and the final climb. After Vos took maximum points in the sprint to retain her green jersey, the remaining points were earned by Elena Cecchini (SD Worx - Protime), Brodie Chapman (Lidl-Trek), Riejanne Markus (Visma-Lease a Bike), and Juliette Labous (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL).

Lidl-Trek led the peloton as the Fenix-Deceuninck, UAE Team ADQ, FDJ-SUEZ, and Movistar riders also began to line themselves up at the front of the race. The teams at the head of the race switched with EF Education-Cannondale, led by Stage 2 winner Alison Jackson, and Visma-Lease a Bike, fronted by Stage 3 winner Vos. Both worked in domestique roles for their teams and as with others working in the same capacity for their stage win hopefuls dropped off when their work was completed.

With 6km left in the race, Muzic’s FDJ-SUEZ teammate Grace Brown took control at the front, a role she had also performed valiantly in the stage prior, to up the intensity and begin to thin out the group. The Australian’s pace dropped multiple riders before Vollering took over at the front with 3.8km to go.

As she did in Stage 5, Vollering’s powerful climb also successfully dropped more riders from the group, but she kept SD Worx - Protime team-mates Marlen Reusser and Niamh Fisher-Black with her to ballast her hopes of a second successive summit victory.

Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Deceuninck), who had finished second the day before, and Longo Borghini, who took third place, remained close behind Vollering in scenes reminiscent of those in the previous stage before Reusser took over to provide some respite for Vollering.

Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck) attacked within the final two kilometres to force a reaction from Vollering, who closed her fellow countrywoman down quickly to return to the front of the race.

Another attack, this time from Kastelijn, was also rapidly diffused by the general classification leader who then led the group through the Flamme Rouge.

A seated acceleration, not dissimilar to the one that had catapulted her into the leader’s jersey the day prior, created a cap for Vollering with just under 700m remaining, but Muzic was determined to stay with her.

The Frenchwoman did just that and sat in second wheel while she waited for the perfect moment to attack as the two went clear from those behind them. With 75 metres to the summit finish at La Laguna Negra, she pushed forward and went out of the saddle as she overtook the Tour de France Femmes 2023 winner to take the victory by two seconds.

Kastelijn added another impressive podium finish at La Vuelta Femenina as she crossed the line 15 seconds later in third, followed by Markus and Longo Borghini to make up the top five.

Ricarda Bauernfeind (Canyon//SRAM Racing) finished sixth before Labous, Rooijakkers, Fisher-Black, and Kim Cadzow (EF Education-Cannondale) completed the top ten.

Stage seven of La Vuelta Femenina will cover 138.6km from San Esteban de Gormaz – Sigüenza. This flatter stage in comparison to stage six will ramp up in the final 500m reaching a 10% gradient at one point, and looks to be one for powerful riders such as Vos.

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