Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx) held onto her lead in the Tour de France Femmes on a rainy, crash-filled and hilly stage 2 from Clermont-Ferrand to Mauriac.
Liane Lippert (Movistar) out-sprinted Kopecky for the stage win, but with the time bonus for second place, Kopecky extended her lead to 49 seconds.
The hilly finish was too tough for the sprinters, so Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx) and Charlotte Kool (dsm-firmenich) dropped out of the top of the standings, and were replaced by Lippert who moved up to second overall at 49 seconds.
Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (AG Insurance-Soudal-Quickstep) finished fourth on the stage and moved into third place overall at 59 seconds.
The group contained most of the GC contenders and no sprinters, and the standings reflect the difficulty of the stage with Demi Vollering (SD Worx), Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ-SUEZ), Tamara Dronova-Balabolina (Israel Premier Tech-Roland), Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek), defending Tour de France champion Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar), Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-Sram) in 4th to 9th places. Ane Santesteban (Jayco-AlUla) is 10th at 1:03.
Some of the potential contenders lost ground in the frantic run-in, with Veronica Ewers (EF Education-Tibco-SVB) giving up 8 seconds.
Clara Koppenburg (Cofidis) and Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Human Powered Health) came in 53 seconds down on the lead group.
The climbs proved too tough for Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma), who finished in the gruppetto over 11 minutes behind.
Kopecky has hopes of holding yellow for some time, but SD Worx is still completely behind Demi Vollering as the best chance to be wearing the jersey after the Tourmalet stage and time trial finale in Pau after eight days of racing.
Stage 3 from Collonges-la-Rouge takes riders over another very hilly stage 147.2 kilometres to Montignac-Lascaux. It's a flat finish and another descent before the finish line, hopefully without the rain that made the run-in stage 2's finish quite dodgy.
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The Tour de France Femmes classifications
Here is a rundown of all the jerseys on offer at the Tour de France Femmes.
Yellow Jersey/Maillot Jaune – The yellow jersey is worn by the overall race leader on the general classification who has completed the stages so far in the lowest accumulated time.
Green Jersey – The green jersey is the points classification. Riders accumulate points at intermediate sprints during stages and also at stage finishes, and the woman with the most points leads the ranking.
Polka Dot Jersey – The red and white polka dot jersey is the mountain classification. Points are handed out to the first riders over certain hills and climbs during the Tour de France Femmes, with the hardest mountains giving the most points. Once again, the rider with the most points leads the ranking.
White jersey – The white jersey is the best young rider classification. It works the same way as the yellow jersey, but only riders under 23 years of age are eligible to win.
