Lisa Brennauer today won the general classification at the Lotto Thüringen Ladies Tour in Gotha, Germany. CANYON//SRAM Racing controlled the gap to an eight-rider breakaway in the final kilometres of the stage and Brennauer finished safely in the bunch to win the yellow leader’s jersey after wearing it for all bar one stage of the seven day tour. The final stage was won by Skylar Schneider (USA national team).

Brennauer, who also won the Best German rider jersey, said the team was giving everything to take home the win today. “Two years ago the stage from yesterday really was not a good day for me and I had some bad memories from that stage. But after I got through yesterday quite well, and still kept the yellow jersey, then I was like okay now we are definitely not going to give it away on the last stage and we will be fighting hard for it.”

After an aggressive first half of today’s stage in Gotha, finally an eight-rider breakaway was able to get away. Brennauer had secured two bonus sprints earlier in the stage and her teammates then worked to control the gap to the group that contained no threats to the general classification.

“I was always racing very good when the tour has been here in Gotha in previous years,” said Brennauer after the stage. “So I had some confidence that we could keep the yellow jersey, and the team rode so well together, working the whole week for me. I’m super happy to get the win for the girls and for the team.”

Brennauer said she hoped that the German tour would one day gain UCI Women’s WorldTour status. “I’ve raced here many times now and it was again another great tour. It was well organised, things ran smoothly and there were a lot of people watching the race in the various cities. It was great to be a part of this race, and I think it would be nice to see this tour get UCI Women’s WorldTour status in the future.”

CANYON//SRAM Racing will next race La Course by Le Tour on Thursday 20 July with a roster of Elena Cecchini, Tiffany Cromwell, Barbara Guarischi, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, Alexis Ryan and Leah Thorvilson.

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