Tour de France Femmes Stage 1: Wiebes Wallops Rivals for First Yellow Jersey

Lorena Wiebes won the opening stage of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift on Saturday, further underlining her status as the best sprinter in the sport, but she had to work hard for the maillot jaune.

Weibes came under pressure in the hilly finale to the stage to Lausanne, with an attack inside the final kilometer by 2023 Tour champion Demi Vollering causing hurt. She was able to get back into contention, though, and was unmatched in the finishing sprint.

The SD Worx – Protime rider raced in ahead of Kim Le Court (AG Insurance – Soudal) and Demi Vollering (FDJ United – Suez), with Puck Pieterse (Fenix – Premier Tech) and Noemi Rüegg (EF Education-Oatly) next home.

The stage was marked by a long range four-woman breakaway, with Amanda Spratt joining them in the finale. However they were recaptured close to the line, with the subsequent climb not tough enough to get rid of the Dutch super sprinter Wiebes.

“I almost cannot believe it,” a beaming Wiebes said. “Team SD Worx Protime worked super hard today. Anna [van der Breggen] came also still to the front with 1km to go, and then Demi [Vollering] attacked. I was like, ‘I need to follow.’ It is such a long sprint, I am super happy with this.

She is now four seconds clear of Le Court in the overall, with Vollering two seconds further back. GC favorites such as Pieterse, Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team l’Imad), Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike), Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) are all ten seconds behind, having missed out on the time bonuses.

However that’s better than Paula Blasi (UAE Team l’Imad) and Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime), who both finished eight seconds back and are now 18 seconds behind Wiebes.

The latter won’t win overall but Blasi and Van der Breggen will rue losing time to their general classification rivals.

Four forge clear early on

Stage 1 of the Tour de France Femmes looked likely to end in a sprint but that didn’t discourage Maud Rijnbeek (Volkerwessels) and Idoia Eraso (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi), who leaped clear very soon after the start. They were joined minutes later by Nikola Nosková (Cofidis) and Océane Mahe (Ma Petite Entreprise).

Canadian rider Alison Jackson (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93) put in a belated, sustained and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to bridge, while the peloton would drop six minutes to the break at one point.

Eraso took the intermediate sprint and Mahe led over the first two of the day’s four categorized climbs.

Amanda Spratt leaped clear of the peloton prior to the day’s final hill, the Côte de Vulliens. Mahé went solo there, while Spratt caught and passed a dropped Mahé and then joined up with Rijnbeek. Those two then caught Eraso, with the three chasers sitting 30 seconds behind Nosková with 25km to go.

Soon afterwards one of the big race favorites Marlen Reusser fell on a fast descent, but the Movistar rider was fortunately able to remount and chase back on.

Nosková was mopped up by the chasers with 17km to go, and this group were finally caught 6km from the line.

Kim Le Court was prominent 1.5km from the line, then Celia Géry (FDJ United – Suez) attacked 1.2km out but didn’t get far.

Demi Vollering then attacked 800 meters to go, with Le Court latching onto her wheel. Longo Borghini got up to them, as did Wiebes.

Wiebes launched and won easily, taking the yellow jersey, with Le Court second and Vollering third.

“I expected that there were some attacks but at the first attack of Gery I still felt good,” Wiebes said. “Then I was like, ‘okay, it is 1K to go, I need to hold on. I cannot drop any more.

“I was a bit blocked because EF started on the right side. Then I found my way. I started a bit early, but I was like, ‘okay, I need to go now.’”

She did, she won, and she now wears Tour de France Femmes yellow for the second time in her career.