The sixth stage of La Vuelta Femenina came down to the top climbers in the peloton, as expected, and it was Anna van der Breggen who rode to victory atop the Les Praeres climb. The SD Worx-Protime rider powered to her first win of the 2026 season ahead of Paula Blasi of UAE Team ADQ, who finished eight seconds behind the former world champion. Marion Bunel of Visma-Lease a Bike finished third on the stage, 29 seconds behind Van der Breggen, as GC gaps finally appeared before the final stage of the race on Sunday.
Van der Breggen wins!
Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto), former Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift winner and favourite going into the stage, finished tenth on the day, 1:09 down. With one stage remaining, Van der Breggen leads the general classification by 18 seconds ahead of Blasi, with Bunel 41 seconds back.
[race_result id=9058 stage_id=90153 count=5 gc=0 year=2026]
[race_result id=9058 stage_id=90153 count=5 gc=5 year=2026]
How it happened
- Another wet stage awaited the peloton on Friday, and with technical roads to come at the end of the stage, riders were on high alert from before the flag drop.
- With 91 km to go, four riders attacked, and they went on to gain almost five minutes' advantage. They were chased by two other riders who were not able to make contact with the front of the race.
- Blasi, the GC leader for UAE Team ADQ, crashed early in the stage with 95 km still remaining. It was the start of a nightmare day for the team, as two-time Tour stage winner Maeva Squiban would crash closer to the finish with 39 km to go. Squiban, who was another leader for the team, was forced to abandon, while Blasi spent a lot of the stage chasing.
- Red jersey wearer Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) was also caught behind a crash and chased for some time before finally making it back into the peloton with 32 km to go. At that point, the advantage of the break had dropped to below three minutes.
- With 23.3 km to go, the peloton crossed the intermediate sprint, and with Franziska Koch only 12 points behind Kopecky in the competition, it was a finish-style sprint to the intermediate line between the FDJ United-Suez rider and stage 5 winner Mischa Bredewold.
Intermediate sprint or finish line? You be the judge.
- Bredewold took the remaining 10 points for crossing the line fifth, after the four breakaway riders took the first four places. This meant that Koch came up empty.
- The break was caught with about 10 km to go and then a sharp right turn took the riders onto a small road and strung out the peloton. EF Education-Oatly led the bunch into the final 8 km.
Spain made sure to deliver some lovely weather for the riders as they got within 8 km of the finish...
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