Lidl Deutschland Tour

Saturday brought the queen stage of the Deutschland Tour, 175.7 kilometers, multiple climbs and more than 2700 vertical meters from Arnsberg to Kassel, home to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe. Knowing that this course came with many challenges, the GC teams pushed hard long before the finish and made sure of dropping and taking the pure sprinters out of contention.

At one point, the bunch split, and Ilan Van Wilder – attentive the whole time – was among those in the front group, which got to open a nice gap before the chasers bridged across. Other attempts of splitting the race came soon afterwards, but the peloton kept things together and penultimate stage eventually concluded with a reduced sprint, won by Soren Waerenskjold (Uno-X Mobility), the leader of the race.

Neo-pro Andrea Raccagni showed the team colors there and took an impressive sixth place in Kassel for his fifth top ten of the season. Soudal Quick-Step teammate Pascal Eenkhoorn was also in the main bunch and this helped him gain four places on the general classification, where he is now tenth ahead of the final stage.

Photo credit: ©Christian Kaspar-Bartke / Getty Images