It was an astonishing performance from 23 year-old French rider Cedrine Kerbaol of the CERATIZIT-WNT Pro Cycling Team to win Stage 6 of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift in Morteau. Kerbaol attacked from the bunch at the top of Côte des Fins with 14.5km to go, descending brilliantly from there to finally make it to the finish line 21” ahead of her closest challenger Marianne Vos (Team Visma | Lease a Bike), who concludes the day in the green jersey, with Liane Lippert (Movistar Team) just behind Vos in third. The results of the stage mean that Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon//SRAM Racing) remains in yellow, 16” ahead of Kerbaol and 19” in front of Kristen Faulkner (EF-Oatly-Cannondale).
Early movers
133 riders started in Remiremont with Marta Lach (CERATIZIT-WNT Pro Cycling Team) unable to commence the stage due to illness. The day started well for Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance - Soudal Team) as the Belgian led the bunch at the top of the first climb of the day on Col du Mont de Fourche (Km 11.7, Cat. 3, 3.2km at 5.9%). Shortly after that, by km 38, French time trial champion Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Human Powered Health) had established a 20" lead alongside Iurani Blanco (Laboral Kutxa-Fundacion Euskadi), the pair riding clear at the front.
A big breakaway group
The breakaway first increased to 14 riders with the likes of Ghekiere, Fem van Empel (Team Visma | Lease a Bike), Franziska Koch (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) and Christine Majerus (Team SD Worx – Protime) making it into the lead group. Then Marianne Vos (Team Visma | Lease a Bike), Niam Fisher-Black (SD Worx-Protime), Soraya Paladin (Canyon//SRAM Racing) and Grace Brown (FDJ-Suez) all boosted the ranks of the breakaway. The escapees had a lead of 2'35" at km 79, meaning that Ghekiere, the best placed rider overall among the 18 leading women (15th at 1’56”), ‘virtually’ led the GC over Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon//SRAM Racing). Though of course there was plenty of racing on the stage still to come…
Col de Ferriere climb
At Km 90 the Col de Ferriere (Cat. 4, 2.6km at 4.7%) climb began with the breakaway 2'10" in front of the bunch. Ghekiere took the lead on the Ferriere summit to score two more points in the mountain classification ahead of Vos (1 pt), though soon after reaching the top those two sat up and let the rest of the break catch them again. Vos was then first over the intermediate sprint line located in Sancey, scoring 25 points in the sprinters' competition and provisionally going joint top of the ranking with the wearer of the green jersey Charlotte Kool (dsm-firmenich PostNL). Ghekiere was relentless and also took the maximum 3 points on the Côte de Laviron climb (Km 106, Cat. 3, 5.7km at 4.1%) virtually moving to the top of the climbers’ classification at that point.
Onto La Roche du Prêtre
Fisher-Black upped the pace on the penultimate climb of the day, La Roche-du-Prêtre (Km 133.1, Cat. 2, 5.5km at 5.6%), with Brown, Ghekiere, Paladin and Gutierrez the only riders initially able to hang on as the breakaway fell apart. Fisher-Black led at summit, ahead of Ghekiere and Brown, with the peloton by this stage trailing by 1’10” and with Ghekiere assured of wearing the polka dot jersey at the stage finale. On the final climb of the day - the Côte des Fins (Km 144.3, Cat. 3, 1.8km at 6.9%) - the last survivors in the breakaway were caught 16km from the finish.
Kerbaol goes clear
The wearer of the polka dot jersey Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) scored three points at the Côte des Fins summit, with Niewiadoma and Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) following her in 2nd and 3rd positions respectively. Just after that, 14.5km from the finish Kerbaol attacked from the top of the Côte des Fins, distancing the only rider to stick her with initially Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck) on the descent – going solo for the win. Kerbaol would not look back from there, flying over the final kilometres to the finish line, delighting the fans in Morteau to notch a first French win at the Tour since Jeannie Longo, who took her 24th and final stage success in Aix-les-Bains in 1989.
