Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) has sealed her place in sporting history by winning the first modern ere edition of Tour de France Femmes, confirming her status as the best rider in the world with stage victory in yellow on La Super Planche des Belles Filles.
After struggling with illness during the early stages of the race, the 39-year-old Dutch rider came good on the penultimate stage to claim victory to Le Markstein. She finished 3:26 ahead of runner-up Demi Vollering, the SD Worx rider who was only rider able to move with Van Vleuten when she attacked with 85km to go.
That dominant performance put Van Vleuten into the yellow jersey for today's final stage, when she went on the attack again to win her second consecutive stage in the mountains and extend her lead overall.
Advertisement
On today's 123.3km stage from Lure to La Super Planche des Belles Filles, Van Vleuten simply pulled away from all of his rivals on the final climb. Again Vollering - who won the climbers' classification - was best of the rest and took 2nd place on the stage at 30 seconds.
Related News
Silvia Persico (Valcar-Travel & Service) led home the chasing group for 3rd place, some 1:43 behind the stage winner and overall leader. Such was the level of difficulty of the upper slopes of the final climb that Persico put nine seconds into 4th place finisher Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Canyon Sram Racing) in the final 100 metres.
Juliette Labous (Team DSM) was next, taking 5th just four seconds behind Niewiadoma, with Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) 6th some 2:01 behind victor Van Vleuten. The Dutch rider won overall from Vollering by 3:48 with Niewiadoma 3rd overall at 6:35.
Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma), who won stages 2 and 6 and held yellow for five stages, won the points classification while Shirin van Anrooij (Trek-Segafredo) won the youth classification.
