On a time trial day, you can’t analyse the full results and consequences until every rider is finished, but you can usually get an idea of who is winning and who is losing quite early on, and stage 4 of the Tour de France Femmes was no different.

The first sign of trouble was when Pauline Ferrand-Prévot went through the first time check well down on not only the best TT riders, but plenty of her less savvy rivals in the discipline too. The answer to the long-held question of how good her TT was unfolded in front of our eyes, and the answer was – well, not very good.

The Visma-Lease a Bike leader seemed to have a relatively upright position on the bike, ostensibly down to some old injuries that made a more aero tuck uncomfortable, and combined with her small stature and lack of TT practice, that didn’t make for a terribly impressive performance.

It was also a tough day for Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime), who was nowhere near the TT level she showed at World Championships and then the Giro d’Italia, really just struggling round the course. More so than the time she lost, the fact that she is clearly not feeling good is probably the biggest blow to any overall ambitions she may have had, because this compressed race really gives you no time to feel bad and then recover.

On the flip side, the rider who quite quickly showed that they were on a very good day was Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney. The Canyon-SRAM rider and Ferrand-Prévot featured in a lot of headlines pre-TT, mentioned as two GC riders who didn’t have the strongest history in the discipline. Yet whilst Ferrand-Prévot faltered, Niewiadoma-Phinney seemed to pull out a level she’s never had before in the TT, beating a lot of the riders she hoped to just minimise her losses to. In many ways, I’d call the Polish rider the biggest winner of the day – because she hardly lost anything.

Whilst not in the GC conversation, Lieke Nooijen also hugely impressed with a time that looked like it could even challenge for the win, beaten only by the World Champion Marlen Reusser (Movistar), as she delivered an effort that shows the serious strength and depth in the Visma-Lease a Bike squad.

And some riders performed pretty much exactly as we expected. Sigrid Haugset (Uno-X Mobility) lost the yellow jersey, but will keep memories of her win and day (or in this case half an hour) in yellow forever. Demi Vollering (FDJ United-SUEZ) finished third, which was at once good and unremarkable – she gained time on many rivals, but it felt so expected that she would do that that it hardly even felt like a big story. She sits only behind Reusser now, who also did exactly what we were all expecting: smoked the competition to storm to the stage win and take yellow.

Reusser in the driving seat

Reusser said before this race began that she was always underrated as a GC rider, and the fact that she was immediately asked about whether she could try to hold yellow is evidence that the phenomenon is still ongoing. Because really, the answer is quite obviously yes, and if Vollering had gone into yellow, that’s probably not the question she would have faced.

But, for one reason or another, Reusser is still underrated, though I’m here to tell you that I think she’s in the driving seat of the Tour right now. A lot of teams and riders probably think that they can take time off her in the mountains, but I really wouldn’t be so sure.

This is a rider who has finished second overall in both of the other Grand Tours, climbed to seventh on the Colle delle Finestre on a bad day, and has one of the strongest – and most committed – teams around her. As a team Movistar are more than ready to help her through the hard stages, and her climbing ability is immense – anyone counting on her to simply get dropped on Mont Ventoux may be in for a shock.

When my colleagues and I were throwing in our pre-race predictions in Lausanne a few days ago, I gave Marlen Reusser as my winner. I feel only more certain that she’s on the right path to win now.

Who suffered?

Lidl-Trek are one of the teams that seem to have put the most resources into this TT, bringing in extra staff just for this day, but their two potential GC riders, Isabella Holmgren and Niamh Fisher-Black, lost two and three minutes respectively.

The German team have said they’re not necessarily aiming for GC, preferring to race every stage aggressively in search of a stage win, but today’s results likely put a dent in any hopes Holmgren and Fisher-Black had of perhaps still surfing into the top 10.

Elisa Longo Borghini had a good result, but the UAE Team L’IMAD rider probably ended the day thinking that it could have been even better, had she not had to stop for a bike change in the final two kilometres. She certainly didn’t suffer in the grand scheme of things, and probably had the third-best ride of the GC contenders, but annoyingly it could have been even better.

Fortunately for her, it’s a good sign that she’s feeling fit, and she’s one of the best-placed riders to take advantage of the punchy, Classics-style stages still to come that could actually end up as the key to this GC race.

Kim Le Court-Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal) really struggled, seemingly unable to push the power that she wanted, and she’s the biggest mover on GC, slipping from second overall down to 15th at 2:15. Can she ride her way back into the top 10? Probably, but she is now racing from behind.

The Ferrand-Prévot question

A lot of people will probably put Ferrand-Prévot in their list of who suffered today, but I’m not sure it is as simple as that.

Yes, she had a pretty poor TT compared to pretty much all of her rivals but a colleague made the point to me in the press room that maybe we are comparing Ferrand-Prévot to unfair standards. We’re contrasting her efforts to the likes of the TT World Champion in what is, literally, her first ITT since returning to the road after a long absence.

Of course, as a GC rider, it was important to look at how she would perform against her main rivals, but to say that she fell shy of any expectations doesn’t hold much water because, really, how could we have had any educated expectations?

The other thing is that a deficit of 2:13 actually feels pretty inconsequential when we think about the stages and challenges still to come. Her time loss was, probably, fairly expected in a discipline she hasn’t raced properly for years, in a far-from-ideal position as she struggled to get into a more aero set-up, but we actually haven’t seen anything to suggest she’s not feeling good in general.

We do have evidence that Ferrand-Prévot is missing a little bit of punch and acceleration; she’s been saying that since the Classics and it’s evident at the Tour too. Still, whilst punch might make the difference in the opening stages, it’s not what’s going to be important on Ventoux.

That will be about threshold power and sustained efforts, and given Ferrand-Prévot’s prowess on the climbs last year, where she gained over three minutes by the end of the race, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think that she could take back 2:13 on that day alone.

This TT was always an unknown for Ferrand-Prévot, her team and us. It’s now a known, but that doesn’t mean she’s done, far from it. The stages the Frenchwoman is able to capitalise on really are still to come, and her time gap to yellow is close enough that it might not be a barrier, but a source of fuel that adds to her fire.

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