La Vuelta Femenina 2023: Gaia Realini earns stunning maiden World Tour win as Annemiek van Vleuten takes red jersey

Italy’s Gaia Realini (Trek-Segafredo) produced a stunning sprint to the line to pip Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) to Stage 6 victory at La Vuelta Femenina and take her first ever World Tour win, but the world champion was consoled by taking the leader’s red jersey.

Realini played the final stages perfectly and kept pace with the Dutchwoman as the pair broke away from the rest of the field 30km from the finish, saving enough energy to win the two-up sprint even with a contentious photo finish putting some doubt into the result which was changed twice.

Demi Vollering (SD Worx) moved off the top of the general classification into second after finishing fifth, with Loes Adegeest (FDJ-SUEZ) and Silvia Persico (UAE Team ADQ) in third and fourth respectively.

Vollering got on the wrong end of a split after taking a nature break in a crosswind section where Movistar decided to light the race up 70km from the finish in Laredo.

Her constant effort to chase back to the leaders wasn’t for nothing as she tried to limit the damage, and with the help of Marlen Reusser (SD Worx) everyone but the leading duo of Van Vleuten and Realini were caught.

Van Vleuten will enter tomorrow’s final stage with a 1:11 advantage over Vollering in second and 1:23 ahead of Riejanne Markus (Jumbo-Visma) who rounds off the current full Dutch top three in the general classification.

More to follow.