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Canadians active at GP Plouay with Numainville third and late attack by Kirchmann

Kirchmann currently sits second overall in the women's WorldTour standings.

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In the second to last race on the women’s WorldTour calendar, Joëlle Numainville sprinted to third place at the GP de Plouay-Bretagne. The 28-year old who rides for Cervélo-Bigla Pro Cycling was part of a late attack of six riders who formed on the final climb which was caught just before the final kilometer. Numainville opened up her sprint briefly surging to the front but lost the lead as Polands Eugenia Bujak of BTC City Ljubljana took her first WorldTour win. In the tight sprint, Italy’s Elena Cecchini of Canyon SRAM Racing took second.

It looked like a group of six would contest the win after escaping on the final climb of the Côte de Ty Marrec which pitches up to a maximum of 10 per cent but the group was unable to coperate and were caught within sight of the flamme rouge. Numainville had made the split which took place as late attacker Leah Kirchmann of Liv-Plantur was caught.

Kirchmann had attacked with a little over 11-km to go and dug deep gaining a maximum advantage of 21-seconds. However when she hit the bottom slopes of the climb her lead evaporated. Joining the chase group of six leaders, Kirchmann sprinted to sixth place despite her enormous effort adding more points to her second place overall in the UCI women’s WorldTour standings as the riders close behind her in the standings wilted on the challenging punchy course.

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American Evelyn Stevens of Boels-Dolmans who quit her finance job on Wall Street in 2009 to take up cycling full time announced her retirement earlier this year and wrapped up a storied road racing career. As she crossed the line, her teamates alongside her applauded. Up ahead Hher teammate, Megan Guarnier who holds an insurmountable lead in the WorldTour general classification crossed the line just ahead of Kirchmann in fifth.

As the peloton sprinted towards the line over six minutes back on the race winner, an unexpected crash took out a number of riders.

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