Ladies Thalita de Jong third in queen stage of Tour Féminin de l'Ardèche

Fariba Hashima won the queen stage of the Tour de l’Ardèche to Mont Lozère, from the breakaway. Thalita de Jong was the strongest from the group behind and arrived solo in third place. “I’m happy with the third spot of today. I took some KOM points on the climb in the beginning of the race. Four riders escaped, and they weren’t that close in the general classification. Some teams were interested in taking them back I thought, as Dominika WÅ‚odarczyk was on 2 minutes 45”, de Jong explains.

“On the last climb Marion Bunel and Maëva Squiban attacked to try to take back some time in the GC, but I countered them immediately. I tried myself as well, but there was headwind so it wasn’t easy. In the end there were two riders from the breakaway who stayed upfront, we took back the other two. On one kilometer from the end I attacked myself, as an answer on an attack of Bunel. She wasn’t in my wheel anymore, which also meant I took some extra time. Unfortunately I don’t win today, but we made the right choice to go full for my leader’s jersey. Tomorrow we’ll try to make it a nice final stage, I’m looking forward to try taking home the leader’s, mountain, rush and points jersey.”