Elena Cecchini has finished 7th today on stage two at the International Ladies Tour of Thüringen. The stage was won by a late solo attack from Olga Zabelinskaya (Russia National Team). Marianne Vos (RLT) won the sprint for second from a small group of ten riders including Cecchini.
A small 12km finishing circuit around the town of Erfurt caused the most damage with the peloton split into several groups. Cecchini was the only CANYON//SRAM Racing rider to make the select group of riders on the final climb of the day. Zabelinskaya attacked soon after and was able to quickly open up a 20 second gap. Following the stage Cecchini said, "I'm feeling good but the first two stages have been full gas and very hard for us!"
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Directeur Sportif Ronny Lauke said the level of racing is impressive. "It's been a hard day today, and we are only at stage two of the tour. The peloton did the climbs much faster than this same course last year, with the pace driven a lot by the Russian national team. When you look ahead to the next days then actually the hardest stages are still to come. It will be a very interesting week."
Zabelinskaya now takes over the leader's jersey, with an advantage of 19 seconds from Vos. Cecchini is the best placed CANYON//SRAM Racing rider at 8th on the general classification, 36 seconds behind the leader. Stage three tomorrow is around the city of Altenburg and racing starts at 14:00 (CEST).
Follow the Thüringen tour on the team's Twitter @WMNcycling.
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