France celebrate one-two as Le Court tightens grip on yellow - Takeaways from Tour de France Femmes stage 6

From a French perspective, stage 6 was an absolute dream: a stage win and the biggest win of her career for Maëva Squiban (UAE Team ADQ) after a fabulous solo move. And, thanks to some slightly odd tactics, a second place for another French rider, Juliette Labous (FDJ-Suez).

The last time a French rider won a stage of the Tour de France Femmes was on last year’s sixth stage with Cédrine Kerbaol. Not only did another French rider win on stage 6, but also another rider from Brittany, as both come from the peninsula.

This is officially Squiban’s first UCI win, but she does have various non-UCI race wins to her name. This one is by far the biggest she has on her palmarès.

Not only does France have a great stage result, the GC sees Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma–Lease a Bike) in second place, and Kerbaol, Evita Muzic (FDJ-Suez) and Labous all move up to 9th, 10th and 11th in GC too.

Kim Le Court (AG Insurance–Soudal) is looking magnificent in her yellow jersey, complete with yellow bike, helmet, bar tape, etc. She even extended her advantage by another 8 seconds yesterday thanks to picking up 4 at the bonus sprint and 4 at the finish.

So far, the Mauritian national champion has picked up 34 seconds in bonuses over the course of the whole Tour de France Femmes. That is comfortably the most of any rider, including Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx–Protime), who has 26, and Marianne Vos (Visma–Lease a Bike), who has 22.

Bonus seconds are integral in this race, especially after last year’s race was decided by just 4 seconds between Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon//SRAM–Zondacrypto) and Demi Vollering (FDJ–Suez).

By contrast, second place Ferrand-Prévot took 8 bonus seconds, Niewiadoma-Phinney 4, Vollering 6 and Anna van der Breggen (Team SD Worx–Protime) 4. None of her other GC rivals have taken any - a potentially key buffer in the final GC fight.

Speaking of Kim Le Court, we have to give a moment to her superb AG Insurance–Soudal teammates - especially Sarah Gigante, Justine Ghekiere and Julie van de Velde, who gave their all over the final two climbs of the day.

Ghekiere even played the domestique role for Gigante, who was briefly distanced after missing a split in the bunch. The work by the Belgian champion was greatly appreciated by the Australian climber, as she patted Ghekiere on the back for helping her.

Ghekiere was then dropped, but kept pushing and managed to come back one more time on the final categorised climb to support her teammates.

Van de Velde spent almost the entirety of the penultimate categorised climb on the front of the bunch, dropping multiple riders from the group. Le Court confirmed afterwards how strong she felt, and it really showed as she appeared to float up the climbs - especially thanks to her wonderful teammates.

So far in the battle for polka dots it has really been just one rider, with a bit of a fight by one other. Yesterday, while the polka-dot jersey of Elise Chabbey (FDJ-Suez) did extend her lead in the classification, she had clear competition from her main rival Silke Smulders (Liv–AlUla–Jayco) as well as Brodie Chapman (UAE Team ADQ).

This gives some hope that the jersey isn’t all but given to the Swiss rider, and that other riders are actually challenging her for the polka dots. Smulders has been giving it a good go for a couple of days now, but Chapman has started going for it since her breakaway antics on stage 5, which saw her move into third in the rankings for the jersey.

Hopefully, this means there will be a hard-fought battle between the three of them - and perhaps some others - as the race goes deeper into the bigger mountains.

In what appears to be a completely different race on the road, two riders battle it out for the right to wear the white (and purple) best U23 jersey.

So far, Julie Bego (Cofidis) has worn the jersey since stage one, with her closest rival, Nienke Vinke (Picnic–PostNL), sitting 22 seconds behind her. That gap didn’t change yesterday, and it was very noticeable that they are very equal in ability as they were riding together for the majority of the day. They marked each other, they were dropped together, and they finished together - 35th for Vinke and 36th for Bego, over six minutes behind Squiban.

It will be an interesting watch to see who comes out on top in the rankings, as their next closest rival is Titia Ryo (Arkéa–B&B Hotels) at almost nine minutes behind them.

One thing that stood out to me on yesterday's stage was how FDJ–Suez rode. They came into the race with the out-and-out favourite in Demi Vollering. Sure, she has had a very heavy crash, and we do not know how much that is actually affecting her. But I was very surprised when Chabbey and Amber Kraak were both allowed to go up the road.

In the men’s side of racing this is very common as a potential bridge for the team leader, should they attack. That may well have been the reason today. But it just felt odd. Chabbey was hoovering up the QOM points and Kraak was working like crazy to keep the break away. She was riding for Chabbey, who was 1'19" down in the GC at the start of the stage.

Of course, they were all caught and Vollering did nothing. Then, as they neared the bonus sprint in Valcivières, Vollering put her whole team on the front. She was then easily beaten by Le Court and Niewiadoma-Phinney to the 4- and 2-second bonuses.

On the descent, Juliette Labous was then sent on the attack. Now, Labous started the day 1'37" down, so could have caused a little bit of pressure, but not really enough to warrant an attack. The only thing I can think of was that Vollering wanted to avoid Le Court taking the 6-second bonus at the finish. Vollering finished just behind Le Court in the bunch sprint for third, where Le Court took a 4-second bonus. Had Labous not gone, Le Court would have got 6, but Vollering would’ve got 4 - meaning she’d have lost just 2 seconds instead of 4. It has really confused me as to why they did that.