From July 24 through July 31, the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift made its debut with an eight stage race that began in Paris and ended on the La Super Planche des Belles Filles. Annemiek van Vleuten of the Netherlands took the overall win, riding terrifically over the final two stages in the mountains.
Final overall standings:
1. Annemiek van Vleuten (NED/MOV), 2. Demi Vollering (NED/SDW) at 3min 48sec, 3. Katarzyna Niewiadoma (POL/CSR) 6:35, 4. Juliette Labous (FRA/DSM) 7:28, 5. Silvia Persico (ITA/VAL) 8:00, 6. Elisa Longo Borghini (ITA/TRE) 8:26, 7. Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (DEN/FDS) 8:59, 8. Evita Muzic (FRA/FDS) 13:54, 9. Veronica Ewers (USA/EFT) 15:05, 10. Mavi Garcia (ESP/UAE) 15:15
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Selected: 26. Marianne Vos (NED/JUM) at 36:56
Read below for stage-by-stage updates, results, and highlights of each stage.
Full Tour de France Femmes Standings
Stage 8
Dutch veteran Annemiek van Vleuten produced the perfect ride on Sunday to win the women's Tour de France with a resounding victory in the eighth and final stage from Lure to La Planche des Belles Filles.
The 39-year-old Movistar rider, who grabbed the lead with a brilliant solo performance in the mountains on Saturday, bided her time in the peloton before powering up the final climb to seal her triumph.
Demi Vollering (SD Worx) finished second to claim second overall with Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Canyon/SRAM) third in the final standings after a fourth place finish on Sunday's stage.
Van Vleuten, a three-time winner of the Giro d'Italia and time-trial gold medallist at the Tokyo Olympics, began the 123-kilometre final stage with a 3min 14sec lead over Vollering which was never in danger in spite of having a mechanical problem with her bike 57kms from the finish which required a quick swap with a teammate.
The yellow jersey group reeled in the 11-rider breakaway with five kilometres to go at which point van Vleuten climbed out of her saddle and began powering her way up the final crippling climb.
She crossed the line 30secs ahead of compatriot Vollering to give her a 3min 48sec winning margin over the eight stages. Vollering at least had the consolation of winning the Queen of the Mountains polka dot jersey.
Valcar rider Silvia Persico of Italy took third on the stage, crossing the line just ahead of Poland's Niewiadoma.
Stage 7
Dutch veteran Annemiek van Vleuten took the yellow jersey in the women's Tour de France with a crushing performance in the mountains which powered her to a remarkable solo victory on Saturday's penultimate stage.
Movistar rider van Vleuten, 39, began the day almost a minute and a half behind the leader Marianne Vos but raced solo with 62km still to go in the mountainous 127.5km stage from Selestat to Le Markstein Fellering.
Demi Vollering (SD Worx) finished second, 3mins 30sec behind, with Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ-Suez) winning the sprint for third.
Van Vleuten, who was sick at the start of the week and almost pulled out of the Tour, now leads by 3min 09sec ahead of Vollering and is the clear favourite to win the race when it ends with Sunday's stage eight on the Super Planche des Belles Filles.
"It has been such a roller coaster," said van Vleuten.
"I have been so sick and to win with this is unbelievable and beautiful. To finish here solo, I had to try because I was behind.
"My style is always attacking not waiting for the final (sprint)."
Van Vleuten attacked as soon as the peloton arrived at the Petit Ballon, the first of the day's torturous climbs.
"I did a reconnaissance of the stage and noticed that the Petit Ballon was a difficult climb," she said.
"After six days of waiting, surviving and recovering, I wanted to make the biggest time gaps and it meant going on the first climb. This stage suited me really well. I knew if I would be fit enough after being sick, it would be my day."
Team Jumbo–Visma rider Vos, who held the yellow jersey at the start of the day after clocking two wins and five podiums in the opening six stages, was unable to stay in touch and eventually limped in almost 25mins after van Vleuten.
Stage 6
Marianne Vos of Team Jumbo-Visma kept a firm grip on the leader's yellow jersey on the women's Tour de France with victory in Friday's sixth stage between Saint-Die-des-Vosges and Rosheim.
The 35-year-old Dutch rider edged out Team UAE Emirates' Marta Bastianelli and Lotte Kopecky of Team SD Worx in the sprint for the line at the end of the 128.6km stage.
Lorena Wiebes, who won the opening stage in Paris and triumphed again in Thursday's stage five, finished 7min 34sec behind her compatriot Vos after suffering a nasty fall, along with Kopecky and Alena Amialiusik, 24km from the finish.
It was a second stage win and fifth podium in the six stages of the Tour for Vos who extended her lead by 10 seconds. She is now 30 seconds ahead of Valcar's Italian rider Silvia Persico and Katarzyna Niewiadoma of Canyon/SRAM with two stages to come.
"It was quite a difficult race," said Vos.
"We had a good situation with Anna Henderson in the breakaway. It was a big breakaway and a strong chase, and (we had) the Cote de Boersch two times which caused some action... and it was also stretched out on a pretty difficult descent.
"The rest of the girls, they kept me in the front, kept me constantly out of the wind.
"They did a perfect job to keep me in front and keep the speed really high until the last corner and then I was in a good position.
"I also felt I was coming from the back so I hoped I could keep it to the line."
Saturday's seventh stage could provide a big shake-up as the Tour heads into the mountains for the first time with three big climbs and a 3,000 metres rise in altitude between Selestat and Le Markstein in the east of France.
The race ends on Sunday with a grand finale up the iconic La Super Planche des Belles Filles.
Another Dutch rider, Movistar's Annemiek van Vleuten, a three-time winner of the Giro d'Italia and time trial gold medallist at the Tokyo Olympics, is lurking just 1min 28sec behind Vos.
All the breakaways on the Tour so far have come to nothing and the Alsace wine route on Friday was equally unforgiving as the riders took on four categorised climbs.
Trek-Segafredo pair Audrey Cordon-Ragot and Elisa Longo Borghini led a breakaway group of 14 riders which built a gap of two minutes before being largely chased down on the final climb with 10km to go.
The last survivor Marie Le Net was caught in the descent to Rosheim, four kilometres from the finish.
Vos positioned herself perfectly in the final sprint and had too much power for Bastianelli and Lopecky.
Stage 5
Lorena Wiebes sprinted to victory in the fifth stage of the Tour de France Femmes on Thursday in Saint-Die-des-Vosges.
The Dutch rider blew away her rivals to cross the line ahead of Italian world champion Elisa Balsamo and yellow jersey wearer Marianne Vos, claiming her second stage win after Sunday’s opener in Paris.
“I felt strong in the sprint, and I’m delighted to win it after such a long stage,” said Wiebes after the longest stage of the week at over 176.5km from Bar-le-Duc to Saint-Die.
The Team DSM rider proved she is almost unbeatable in a sprint, with only Balsamo managing to beat her twice this season. Wiebes claimed her 17th victory and the 53rd of the 23-year-old’s career.
Jumbo-Visma’s Vos took four bonus seconds thanks to her third place and gained time over all her rivals going into the final three days of racing.
“The aim is to take the green jersey,” said Wiebes of the honor going to the top sprinter.
The 35-year-old Vos, one of the great names of cycling, leads the general standings after her fifth top five finish in as many stages.
But several top sprinters lost out after being caught up in a mass crash 45km from the finish line. Belgian Lotte Kopecky was delayed and then slowed down by mechanical problems, with Danish rider Emma Norsgaard taking a hard hit to her left shoulder.
Friday’s sixth stage covers 129km to Roshelm before the weekend in the Vosges mountains.
Stage 4
Swiss rider Marlen Reusser won the women’s Tour de France fourth stage on Wednesday, as Dutchwoman Marianne Vos retained the overall leader’s yellow jersey while crossing the line in fifth place.
Reusser, 30, broke away with 15km left after four gravel sections in the Champagne wine region, with Evita Muzic in second place and Belarussian Alena Amialiusik in third.
“I think here in this Tour every day is hard, at least for me,” Reusser, a former doctor, told Eurosport. “This stage suited the kind of rider I am with these gravel sections... The team had a plan to do a hard race and not let it come down to an easy finale. We just said attack and one would go. I was lucky it was me.”
The 35-year-old Vos, who took over the yellow jersey with victory in Stage two on Monday keeps a 16-second advantage over her closest rivals, Italian Silvia Persico and Polish rider Katarzyna Niewiadoma.
Spanish veteran Mavi Garcia lost more than one minute and 30 seconds in the general standings after issues on the uneven surface, which included crashing with a team car ,as riders suffered numerous punctures; but Vos and her fellow Jumbo-Visma riders survived unscathed.
“We spent a lot of energy to stay in front, and you had to really fight for a position before the gravel sections and the climbs as well,” Vos told reporters. “We weren’t very concerned, we had to stay in front and stay out of trouble. We did, so I’m happy about that.”
During the dust-filled gravel sections, which passed through the world-renowned vineyards in eastern France, Tuesday’s stage winner Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig and yellow jersey contender Niewiadoma suffered punctures before rejoining the peloton.
With 15km to go, Reusser, the European road time-trial champion, made an attack from a big leading bunch as the riders returned to normal roads. Niewiadoma’s Canyon-SRAM teammate Amialiusik, racing as a neutral rider after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, then followed the Swiss as the group broke up. Frenchwoman Muzic, age 23, completed the breakaway.
Reusser claimed the three-second bonus atop Cote des Bergers with less than 10km to go and was first over the final climb of the day on Cote du Val Perdu, with 5km left. She dominated the closing stages and pointed at her team name on her dust-covered jersey, then held her arms wide open as she crossed the finish line in Bar-sur-Aube.
Thursday’s fifth stage is a flat 175.6km ride from Bar-le-Duc eastwards to Saint-Die-des-Vosges near the German border.
The eight-day race finishes on Sunday on La Super Planche des Belles Filles, where two-time winner Tadej Pogacar claimed stage victory during the men’s Tour earlier this month.
Stage 3
Danish rider Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig outsprinted Marianne Vos to win Stage 3 of the Tour de France Femmes on Tuesday, but the veteran Dutch rider held on to the yellow jersey.
The day after a nightmare Stage 2 for her FDJ Suez Futuroscope team, marked by the abandonment of title contender Marta Cavalli, Ludwig battled back from a fall to produce a vintage performance amid the Champagne wine country.
After two relatively flat rides, the peloton had to face its first climbs as they took on the 133.6km course from Reims to Epernay.
Eleven riders slugged it out over the final stages, with Vos working hard to rejoin the leaders after being dropped. The 35-year-old, who took over the yellow jersey with victory in Stage two on Monday, sprinted hard, but it was 26-year-old Ludwig who powered through the line first.
“I wanted to help the team, keep my fighting spirit,” said Luwig, who was wearing the jersey of Danish champion. “I knew that if I had the legs, I could play for victory. But from there to do it, to become a winner of stage in the Tour de France and with this jersey... My God, what more could you ask for.”
Team Jumbo-Visma’s Vos finished two seconds behind, closely shadowed by South African Ashleigh Moolman Pasio, Italians Silvia Persico and Elisa Longo Borghini, and Polish rider Katarzyna Niewiadoma.
Vos leads the general classification with a 16-second lead over Valcar’s Persico and Niewiadoma of Canyon.
Annemiek van Vleuten, one of the pre-race favourites, struggled with illness and was dropped on the Mont Bernon climb 4km from the finish. The Olympic time-trial champion managed to rejoin the leading group but again fell away in the closing stages and finished 20 seconds after Ludwig. Van Vleuten, bidding to complete a Giro d’Italia-Tour de France double, said she had barely been able to eat in the last two days.
“Today was actually awesome compared to yesterday, because yesterday I was actually really, really sick,” she told Eurosport. “It started a couple of hours after the first stage, I had a stomach infection... The last thing I was thinking about was racing.”
The Dutchwoman sits ninth in the standings, 74 seconds off the pace set by Vos.
Wednesday’s fourth stage of the eight-stage race, which ends on Sunday, is a 126km ride over steep ramps and unpaved roads from Troyes to Bar-sur-Aube.
Stage 2
Dutch rider Marianne Vos took over the yellow jersey in the Tour de France Femmes with victory in a three-way sprint to win the second stage from Meaux to Provins on Monday.
Team Jumbo-Visma’s Vos edged out Silvia Persico and Katarzyna Niewiadoma in the sprint to claim the yellow jersey from compatriot Lorena Wiebes, who finished 29 seconds behind in sixth place.
“It’s not revenge, it’s an absolutely wonderful day,” said Vos, who finished second behind Wiebes in Sunday’s opening stage on the Champs-Elysees.
Trek-Segafredo’s Elisa Longo Borghini, winner of Paris-Roubaix and a definite contender for the yellow jersey in France, finished fourth in the stage, two seconds back.
Less fortunate was the Italian rider Marta Cavalli, winner this year of the Amstel Gold Race and the Fleche Wallonne, and a contender for the overall title here. The 24-year-old was taken to hospital after suffering a head injury in one of three nasty crashes in a last 30 kilometres where the crosswinds and gusts of up to 45 km/h made the riders jumpy about the prospect of a break in the peloton.
“We don’t have much news from Marta, she is suffering from a head injury,” said team manager Stephen Delcourt on arrival in Provins. “We remain in contact with the doctor. She has been sent to the hospital to carry out a CT scan as a priority.”
Cavalli was already on the ground when she was hit by Australian champion Nicole Frain, who came flying through without braking. The runner-up at this year’s Giro d'Italia, Cavalli climbed back on her bike but failed to finish the stage, with the team pulling her out and sending her to hospital.
“She suffered a big shock. We didn’t want to take any risks,” said Delcourt. “She wanted to carry on but the team said no. We don’t want to play with the lives of our cyclists... We are very worried. You saw the very spectacular crash and how dangerous our sport is. We really have to be careful. I am very worried for the safety of our riders.”
It was a bad day all round for FDJ as Danish rider Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, their other potential challenger, got caught up in another crash and lost more than a minute to Vos, Longo Borghini, and Niewiadoma.
In addition to Cavalli, another Italian, Gaia Masetti, also gave up, as well as the German Laura Suessemilch, who is undergoing hospital tests for possible fractures, according to her Plantur-Pura team. French rider Maeva Squiban finished the stage but “could not walk” on arrival, according to her team, Stade Rochelais, and went to get an X-ray.
The 35-year-old Vos, one of the great names in cycling with three world road championships and Olympic track gold among her many honors, this yellow jersey has a sense of unfinished business. She won on the Champs-Elysees in 2014 in the first edition of La Course, a race she helped to launch, which took place on the last day of the men’s Tour de France. As a child, she pressed her parents to take her to watch the Tour.
“We were going to Alpe d’Huez, to the sprint finishes, to Pau,” she said again at the start in Meaux on Monday. “That was how we spent our summer holidays, driving the course in our camping van.”
Vos now leads the general classification with a 10-second lead over Valcar rider Persico, with Niewiadoma of Canyon two seconds further back.
Tuesday’s Stage 3 should also suit the sprinters, with a 133.6km ride through the Champagne region from Reims to Epernay.
Stage 1
Lorena Wiebes outsprinted fellow Dutchwoman Marianne Vos to win the first stage of the Tour de France Femmes in Paris on Sunday and pull on the leader’s yellow jersey.
Team DSM rider Wiebes accelerated past Vos of Jumbo-Visma on the Champs-Elysees, with Belgian Lotte Kopecky third after the 81.6km run around Paris starting at the Eiffel Tower.
“The team did an amazing job,” said Wiebes. “It was a really chaotic and long sprint.”
Three-time world champion Vos had attacked early to try to win. But Wiebes was well placed on the final bend to take victory.
“It was really close but luckily I could accelerate one more time and overtake Marianne on the finish line,” added Wiebes. “I was quite relaxed before the start. We did everything as normal, we saw it as a normal race but of course I was quite nervous towards the end.”
At 23-years-old, the DSM sprinter claimed the 52nd success of her career and the 16th of the season.
Monday’s second stage of eight heads east, covering 136.4km between Meaux and Provins.
