Cédrine Kerbaol (Ceratizit-WNT) is the first French stage winner in the three-year history of the Tour de France Femmes, winning stage 6 by attacking just after the last climb of the day. Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck) followed her, but Kerbaol rode away from the Dutch climber on the downhill to Morteau.
Doing a spectacular descent, Kerbaol increased her advantage on the chasing peloton to up to 40 seconds, even putting the yellow jersey of Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) in danger before Niewiadoma's teammate Neve Bradbury and FDJ-Suez' Grace Brown and Léa Curinier reduced the gap again, keeping the Polish allrounder in the maillot jaune.
In the end, Kerbaol could celebrate on the finish line, taking the biggest victory of her career so far. 20 seconds later, Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) won the sprint for second place ahead of Liane Lippert (Movistar Team) and Karlijn Swinkels (UAE Team ADQ), taking the green jersey off Charlotte Kool (DSM-Firmenich PostNL).
"I have never won a race like this, it's legendary. I'm in form at the moment, I hope that I will still progress and become even stronger. I have never been so close to the best riders either, so this is pretty good," said Kerbaol.
"I felt really good on the climbs, my teammates were always there to put me in the best position possible. And on the last climb, I reminded myself to be patient because I often attack a little too early. I said to myself that I was not going to go for the bonus sprint and just focus on trying to go for the victory. There was a little moment where it was flat, and that's where I went. I knew that I could make the difference on the descent and saw right away that I had a gap. And then I put myself in time trial mode," Kerbaol described the stage.
The 23-year-old is now only 16 seconds behind Niewiadoma and promised that she would go all-in on the last two stages.
"You always have to believe in it. Once I had the white jersey [in 2023], I said to myself, 'now I have to go and defend it'. I didn't target that either, so now we are going to try everything and see what happens. I hope for a good placing," Kerbaol said.
How it unfolded
Covering 159.2km from Remiremont to Morteau, the stage began very fast. Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal) attacked on the first classified climb and took the QOM points before being caught by a group of nine riders.
They were quickly reeled in again, and after another flurry of attacks, Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Human Powered Health) and Yurani Blanco (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi) got away.
Christine Majerus (SD Worx-Protime), Franzi Koch (DSM-Firmenich PostNL), Ellen van Dijk (Lidl-Trek), Ghekiere, Fem van Empel (Visma-Lease a Bike), -Amber Pate (Liv-AlUla-Jayco), Nina Berton (Ceratizit-WNT), Sheyla Gutiérrez (Movistar Team), Julie De Wilde (Fenix-Deceuninck), Victoire Berteau (Cofidis), Maaike Coljé (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), and Anniina Ahtosalo (Uno-X Mobility) bridged to the front duo, and when Vos, Grace Brown (FDJ-Suez), Niamh Fisher-Black (SD Worx-Protime), and Soraya Paladin (Canyon-SRAM) made it across a little while later, a break of 18 riders was established.
Their advantage grew to 2:48 minutes, putting Ghekiere in the virtual GC lead, but more importantly, the 28-year-old Belgian continued to pick up mountain points. Vos won the day's intermediate sprint to equal the points tally of green jersey Charlotte Kool (DSM-Firmenich PostNL), and at the bottom of the second-category climb of La Roche du Prêtre, the breakaway was still 1:20 minutes ahead.
Mavi García (Liv-AlUla-Jayco) attacked from the peloton but was eventually reeled in again while the breakaway fell apart on the 5.5-kilometre climb, leaving only Paladin, Fisher-Black, Gutiérrez, Brown, and Ghekiere at the front one kilometre from the top.
Fisher-Black's attack immediately dropped Paladin and Gutiérrez and also distanced Ghekiere and Brown, though they were able to come back after the QOM sprint. Paladin and Gutiérrez were a minute behind, followed by the peloton at 1:11 minutes.
Marion Bunel (St Michel-Mavic-Auber 93) attacked from the peloton on the plateau at the top but was reeled in again, and Brown won the bonus sprint ahead of Ghekiere and Fisher-Black. What remained of the peloton – a group of about 30 riders – was 38 seconds behind.
Brown attacked into the final climb of the day, the Côte des Fins, and local rider Juliette Labous (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) made her move from the peloton in the 'virage Labous' where her fans had assembled, catching Ghekiere but not getting away.
Rooijakkers then counterattacked, passing Brown and Fisher-Black, but Niewiadoma brought the peloton back. Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) attacked on the last part of the climb to take the QOM points. Since she was only 22 seconds down in GC, Niewiadoma followed her move which prompted Vollering to go after them as well.
Pieterse won the QOM sprint but still lost the polka-dot jersey to Ghekiere. On the false-flat after the climb, almost 20 riders came back to the front, and Kerbaol made use of the indecision to launch her attack 14.5km from the finish line.
Only Rooijakkers jumped onto Kerbaol's wheel but could not follow her down the descent where Kerbaol used her local knowledge to increase her advantage second by second.
At the 10km mark, Kerbaol was 23 seconds ahead while Rooijakkers had been caught by the chasing group. Kerbaol increased the gap to 40 seconds before Bradbury, Brown, and Curinier were able to claw back a few seconds again.
Passing the flamme rouge with a 30-second margin, the stage victory was certain for Kerbaol who sat up a few metres before the line to celebrate. Vos – who had been dropped on the climb but returned to the chase group in the final – won the sprint for second place to take the lead in the points classification.
Results
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