The former world champion went for a different tactic in the final stage of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
ASO
The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift didn’t play out the way SD Worx-Protime had intended. A year prior, their star rider had been tipped as the top contender to take the race overall. But Lotte Kopecky didn’t have the preparation necessary, so the GC role was handed to Anna van der Breggen, fresh off a three-year retirement from professional cycling.
After finishing third overall at La Vuelta España Femenina and sixth overall at the Tour, pinning any GC ambition on Van der Breggen wasn’t a step down for the Dutch team. The former multiple-time world champion has won four editions of the Giro d’Italia, after all. But this peloton is far different from the one Van der Breggen stepped away from in 2021.
A bad day on the queen stage left the SD Worx-Protime rider 12th overall, 9:25 down on Pauline Ferrand-Prévot. She was the first of the big favourites to drop on the Col de la Madeleine.
“I was not happy with yesterday,” Van der Breggen said after the final stage on Sunday. “I had seven really good days, and yesterday was a really off day, on the wrong day to have it. So I was really disappointed yesterday, but today it’s good that the feeling was already a bit better again.”
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