She tried to win, with the help of the entire Alé BTC Ljubljana team, but Mavi Garcia didn’t go beyond a very important second place in the final general classification of the 19th Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l’Ardèche in France. She finished nine seconds behind the American Leah Thomas (Movistar Team).
Today, in the seventh and final stage of 81.5 km, from Le Pouzin to Privas, Lucinda Brand (Trek-Segafredo) won alone. Mavi Garcia finished the stage in sixth place in a trio that included all three of the best in the classification. The gap was therefore intact and the final victory went to Leah Thomas with 9 seconds over Mavi Garcia in second place and Ane Stantesteban (Team BikeExchange) in third.
This is another result of great prestige for the Italian team that is living an extraordinary end of season full of results that are pushing it to the top of the UCI world ranking.
Even this Tour de l’Ardeche has given a lot of satisfaction, in addition to the final second place of Mavi Garcia, had come a second place in the first stage sprint with Marta Bastianelli and the same Italian athlete, two days ago, had won with a splendid solo the hardest stage of the French race. Yesterday only a fall denied Laura Tomasi a place in the sprint, after spending the day on the attack.
Now the attentions of the great cycling turn towards Belgium and the next UCI World Championships.