Exhibiting remarkable speed, Daria Pikulik clinched her second victory of the season on stage 4 of the Bretagne Ladies Tour.
After securing a win on the inaugural day of the Women’s World Tour in a sprint at the Tour Down Under, the Polish cyclist had her share of misfortune with a crash-ridden spring season. However, a recent second-place finish at Leidel Koerse and today’s triumph indicate a resounding return to peak form for the 26-year-old.
Pikulik was skilfully positioned by Lily Williams into the final winding kilometre before making her move alongside Ariana Fidanza of Ceratizit WNT in Kervignac.
Identifying Fidanza and Martina Alzini of Cofidis as the ones to track, Pikulik expertly timed her sprint. She faced the wind head-on and outpaced the two Italian competitors up the subtle incline to the finish line.
The GC battle was largely unaffected on Stage 4 with only 2 bonus seconds going to Alessia Vigilia and 1 second to Audrey Cordon-Ragot. The Bretagne Ladies Tour concludes tomorrow on a rolling circuit around Saint-Jean-Brévelay. The leader Grace Brown has a healthy advantage over 2nd place Coralie Demay of 17 seconds. Vigilia is 26″ back and Audrey Cordon-Ragot is 36″ behind Grace Brown. No doubt on tomorrow’s final stage the local Breton will look to take advantage of the hilly parcours with eyes on the podium.
“I am really happy about this because I needed it to feel myself again, The team really deserves this because we’ve been trying really hard so today is a perfect day for us. From the beginning of the race we tried to be on the front as much as we can and in the last circuit as well.
All the girls did a really good job and we were thinking we could go with Audrey for the win to get bonus seconds but we lost each other so I heard on the radio to go and finish hard. Thank you to all the riders, the staff and sponsors for keeping their belief in us,”
Daria Pikulik
2023 Bretagne Ladies Tour Stage 4 result
Results powered by FirstCycling.com
Main photo credit: Arne Mil
