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Until today, it had been a forgettable Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift for UAE Team ADQ. Losing Giro d\u2019Italia winner Elisa Longo Borghini to illness after stage 2 was a hammer blow; an end to the team\u2019s GC campaign before it even began. But the disappointment didn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n
Eleonora Gasparrini didn\u2019t start stage 4, also due to illness, and then on stage 5, Karlijn Swinkels went home as well. When stage 6 began, UAE Team ADQ was down to just four riders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As it turned out, four was all they\u2019d need.<\/p>\n
On a tough day in the hills of France\u2019s Massif Central, Maeva Squiban turned UAE Team ADQ\u2019s Tour around. With 32 km to go, on the last categorised climb of the day, Squiban punched away solo from the remnants of the peloton. Being nearly 10 minutes down on GC, the young Frenchwoman was given some initial leeway by the teams of the big favourites. But there were no gifts after that.<\/p>\n
“It’s not easy for us. We started today with only four. Other teams have seven riders, it’s super hard to stay in the front, especially here in the Tour when the bunch is super nervous, super hectic, everybody would like to win,” Squiban’s teammate Dominika W\u0142odarczyk said after the race.<\/p>\n
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