17-08-2008 23:53:20

24 year old Luise Keller of Team Columbia successfully defended the leaders jersey at Route de France on Sunday to achieve her first career tour victory.

After taking the lead on stage 3 with an impressive solo attack during the hilly stage to Les Settons, Keller extended her lead with a dominating performance in the time trial on Saturday. The young German Champion and her team controlled the final stage to win the overall race by over two minutes.

"I'm really happy to win my first stage race, said Keller. "It was a really nice race and I found out what it feels like to be a GC rider.
I didn't have to do anything after I got the yellow jersey except eat and drink. My team mates did everything else."

Team director Ronny Lauke was extremely happy with the whole race. "It was amazing," he said. "The girls rode really well together and came up with a very exciting victory."

"It was also very rewarding for me as this is my first tour win as a director in womens cycling," he added.

The team won 5 stages and the overall classification and finished the week with young Emilia Fahlin sprinting to take third place in the final stage. They also pulled off the team classification with Kim anderson and Anke Wichmann finishing in 7th and 10th place overall.