Georgia Baker stepped up to take her first UCI road race win on Stage 2 of the Lotto Thüringen Ladies Tour today, as Team BikeExchange-Jayco made it two victories in as many days in Germany.
After a full-on stage helping to keep GC leader Alex Manly in the leader’s jersey and also working to bring Ruby Roseman-Gannon to the front for the sprint finale, Baker and the team capitalised on a hectic finish and changed tactics in the chaos to get the result.
Superb work from team-mates Teniel Campbell and Arianna Fidanza throughout the day helped the squad ensure that the overall race lead stays in its hands, as well as securing a second consecutive win.
After a lone attacker went out front for the first 50km of the day, the race was brought back together before the hilly terrain split the peloton, as several attacks went off. It all came back together for the expected sprint finish in Gera where Team BikeExchange-Jayco were able to taste success once again.
Georgia Baker – Winner stage 2
“We had a really strong team ride today. Our main goal was to keep Alex in the yellow jersey, so a stage win is a bonus! To be honest, that wasn’t our plan for me to win today, it just worked out like that. So I am really happy!
There are a lot of strong riders here so we had to work really hard to bring back the breakaways, we got it back and eventually had a sprint finish. We had done recon on the last 3km so knew it would be really fast and technical, so we knew we had to be top three coming into it and we executed it really well.
Our main priority is the GC, but a stage win tomorrow (on Stage 3), we’ll see what we can do.”
Andrew Smith (Sport Director)
“It was quite difficult to try and balance our stage and GC ambitions. We knew on this finish we had a good chance for a win with either Ruby or Georgia, so the girls just tried to keep the early break under control.
There were two more riders who went again on the last lap of the finishing circuit, but I think we always had everything under control. The ideas was for Georgia to actually lead-out Ruby, and in the end she did such a good lead-out that she took the stage win!
This just shows that if everyone works together and there’s great teamwork, it all comes to fruition. Also from Teniel today, there was a massive amount of work from her to help keep everything under control.”
2022 Lotto Ladies Tour, Stage 2 – Results:
1. Georgia Baker (Team BikeExchange-Jayco) 2:41:58
2. Maria Giulia Confalonieri s/t
3. Femke Markus s/t
2022 Lotto Ladies Tour, Stage 2 – General Classification:
1. Alex Manly (Team BikeExchange-Jayco) 05:14:09
2. Femke Markus +00:06
3. Maria Giulia Confalonieri +00:08
Photo credit: Arne Mill / Lotto Ladies Tour