Kim Le Court moves into yellow after gripping stage 5 win at the Tour de France Femmes
Le Court sprinted to the win and took the yellow jersey after previous leader Marianne Vos was dropped on the final climb
Kim Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal) won the sixth stage of the Tour de France Femmes, winning a sprint from a group of seven women. The stage win also takes the Mauritian champion into the overall race leader’s yellow jersey.
Le Court benefited from excellent team work, her team mate Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal) leading her into the final two kilometres before the reduced group sprint. Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) tried an early, long sprint, but was baulked on the barrier, Le Court then leading out from the front. Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ) almost caught Le Court on the line, but finished second, with Van der Breggen third.
The closing kilometres were enlivened by the late bonus second sprint, just over 8km from the line where the group exploded. Le Court took six seconds there, with Pauline Ferrand-Prevot taking four and second and Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon//SRAM-zondacrypto) two, but Vollering then attacked on the steepest gradient of the climb.
Van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) led a group of seven over the top and onto the technical descent, attacking each bend an causing a split. However, Gigante rejoined on the flat section, working to set up her leader for a memorable win.
The stage brought a number of abandons, with UNO-X Mobility’s GC rider Katrine Aalerud, Olympic champion Kristen Faulkner (EF Education-Oatly), Monica Trinca Colonel (Liv-AlUla-Jayco) and Lidl-Trek’s sprinter Elisa Balsamo among those forced off the bike.
How it unfolded
As the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift moves further south and east, the parcours is becoming hillier, with Wednesday’s 165.8km stage between Chasseneuil-du-Poitou and Guéret not only the race’s longest day, but the real transition.
While Tuesday’s stage was the flattest, stage five started flat before moving into the hills for what was an explosive final. Organisers had packed the day’s final kilometres, starting at 39km to go, with an uphill intermediate sprint which was followed immediately by the first of two fourth-category climbs and a brief pause.
Just 10km before the finish, the third category Le Maupuy climb began, with a bonus second sprint coming just 1500m later. After the sprint, where the first three riders could earn six, four and two seconds respectively, the road briefly ramping up to 14% before easing over the top for a seven-kilometre descent to the line.
A day designed for fireworks began explosively enough, with a number of attacks producing some small breakaways, perhaps the most significant being SD Worx-Protime’s Elena Cecchini getting a gap of around 50 seconds. However, 20km in and the former Italian champion was back in the bunch.
A number of crashes marred these opening kilometres, with some big names forced to abandon. Green jersey, Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) was caught in one of them, though she had Blanka Vas and the team’s GC rider Anna van der Breggen with her to escort her back to the front.
Finally, with 40km done, Anneke Dijkstra (VolkerWessels), Francesca Barale (Picnic-PostNL), Chilean champion Catalina Soto Campos (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi) and Canadian champion Alison Jackson (EF Education-Oatly) got a gap. With 100km to go, this group had a lead of 1.20, though not for long, other riders setting off in pursuit, Brodie Chapman (UAE Team ADQ) eventually making it across.
Once the former Australian champion reached the break, the peloton finally relaxed, allowing the gap to increase to more than four minutes. That began to drop with 60km to go, Movistar working on the front, and 10km later, the leaders had lost more than a minute. When they reached the intermediate sprint, the gap was well under two minutes. Then, on the ensuing climb, Soto Campos and Dijkstra were dropped as the final loomed.
There was a change in the bunch too, Demi Vollering’s FDJ-SUEZ team joined at the front by AG Insurance-Soudal, working for Le Court. Fenix-Deceuninck made the second climb hard, dropping Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) and bringing the leaders’ advantage to 40 seconds, though Chapman attacked the break, taking 20 seconds over the top.
After the descent and before the final, third-category climb, the peloton eased, and a number of riders attacked, Silke Smulders (Liv-AlUla-Jayco), Maeva Squiban (UAE Team ADQ), Dilyxine Miermont (Ceratizit) and Shirin van Anrooij (Lidl-Trek) bridged to Chapman at the front.
That move was doomed, though. Squiban made a final bid for glory, but the Canyon//SRAM-zondacrypto led peloton and brought the French woman back immediately before the bonus second sprint.
