Susanne Ljungskog (Menikini-Selle Italia) won the Tour de l'Aude on Sunday.

The ninth and final stage, a 71km leg around Limoux, went to Germany's Judith Arndt (Team High Road), who outsprinted Ljungskog and Nicole Cooke of the British national team.

The final stage served up two difficult climbs early in the race. Trixi Worrack (Equipe Nürnberger Versicherung) went on the offensive in hopes of regaining her third place in the overall classification after losing it in stage 7. Her attack on the second climb of the day split the field and led to a break of four that included Arndt, Worrack, Cooke and race leader Ljungskog.

“Trixi drove the break for 40km as she was the one who had the most to gain,” explained Arndt. “ I didn’t really want to work because we had Ljungskog in the group, who was a danger for Ina’s [Teutenberg] points jersey.”

After finishing second on the day, Ljungskog easily took the overall by 3:35 over Arndt, while Worrack's efforts in the break paid off by returning her to third overall at 4:02.

“I think we should be happy about the tour,” said Arndt. “It was a very tactical race. We were not the strongest team for the mountains and we had some bad luck with Luise [Keller] crashing early in the week, but overall we did well.”