Today‘s stage at the Tour of Britain saw some hilly terrain again. After the start, Franziska Koch went solo and was only caught back with 35 kilometres to go. She then immediately helped position her teammates again. The race blew up over the final climb and a duo went clear. Pfeiffer Georgi and Abi Smith worked hard in the chase but couldn’t catch them back. Pfeiffer sprinted to 5th place from the chasing group, while Franziska was awarded the Combativity Award for today’s stage.
After the stage Georgi said: “Our plan for today was to try and get one of us in a breakaway to survive the first category climb and then have more numbers in the final. So it was not ideal having Franzi to ride solo, which is why we kept attacking behind to create a better situation for us. In the end, nothing was allowed away and the climb was raced hard from the bottom. I made it over the top in the chase group behind Lotte Kopecky and Anna Henderson. Abi came back on the descent which was really valuable. Unfortunately, the cooperation in the chase wasn’t the best so we didn’t manage to close it. But we will look for opportunities to get onto the GC podium in the final two days.”