Lotte Kopecky: “We had to wait for this”

May 6 ^th 2026 - 18:09 [GMT + 2]

Lotte Kopecky (Team SD Worx-Protime) won the fourth stage of La Vuelta Femenina 26 by Carrefour.es and is the new overall leader of the race.

"I needed to be patient after finishing second two times, which was not super great. We really believed we could get one victory as a team, but we had to wait for it. This has been the easiest stage so far, with some long climbs, but steady ones. But then, the final was really hard! At one moment, I really thought that we were not going to catch the breakaway, but then the pace became super high as there was one attack after the next. Luckily, my teammates were just on fire and they could respond to all of them, and I just had to jump from wheel to wheel. In the end, we were in perfect position with Liane (Lippert) going first into the corner, and then I just tried to grab my handblebars and start sprinting. It is really nice to wear the red jersey, but of course we were hunting for victories. I saw Franziska (Koch) going for the Intermediate Sprint and realized she was claiming two bonus seconds for the GC, but I preferred to save some energy as I knew that, if I won the stage, I would get the red jersey - so I focused on that."