Ever since women's racing reclaimed the Tour de France name in 2014, first through La Course by Le TDF and now the Tour de France Femmes, it's been the Dutch who have performed best. Be it Vos, Van der Breggen, Van Vleuten or now Vollering, never has the home nation lived up to the strength of the Netherlands.
But fittingly today, following a Dutch Grand Départ, Cédrine Kerbaol turned the tide with the first French stage win at the revived Tour de France Femmes, emulating the great but controversial Jeannie Longo. The 65-year-old was the last home winner at the women's race in 1989 before former director Jean-Marie Leblanc decided to scrap the event.
For 24-time stage winner Longo, the last win location was Aix les Bains, for Kerbaol it was the small commune Morteau that hosted her first, with the special feeling of a French win at the women's Tour finally returning after two years and six stages of the new race and 35 years since the old one.
"It's a bit crazy. I mean, the first French winner at the Tour de France Femmes, it's something super cool," said Kerbaol in her post-race press conference. "I'm thinking a lot about the next generation coming and I hope it gives them a lot of motivation to see that.
"I have never won a race like this, it's legendary. I have never been so close to the best riders either, so this is pretty good."
Kerbaol took home the best young rider's white jersey at last year's race, which was the only tangible success French riders had from the first two editions, however, a stage win is on another level.
On Friday's stage 6 of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes made her winning solo move 14.6km from the line after the final climb up Côte des Fins, with the GC favourites Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) and Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) marking each other out.
Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck) joined her but couldn't hold the pace as Kerbaol railed the descent at breakneck speed. She was soon alone and showed every bit the power of a former French national time trial champion to hold a 21-second lead on the bunch behind.
While the huge crowds were out mainly to support local heroes Juliette Labous (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) and Evita Muzic (FDJ-Suez), it was Brittany's Kerbaol received every bit of adoration from the spectators present as she powered to the line to make history.
"It was the plan to attack at some point, but not particularly there. The goal was to feel the race and to do something. There were a few attacks of Juliette [Labous], for example, and I thought 'OK, I need to be patient', to wait my time," Kerbaol explained.
"I knew there was this downhill and then I attacked, we were two and I asked [Rooijakkers] to take a turn and I think she was just full gas and I thought OK, now I'll just do the downhill like I know how to do it.
"I didn't think about the fact that [Rooijakkers] was with me and then a few minutes later, she was not there anymore. I took a lot of please in the downhill, I really liked that and then when I arrived on the flat part, it became a bit harder."
With the win incoming, Kerbaol didn't allow herself to think of what she was about to achieve, focused solely on turning the pedals and churning out the watts. It was bold, calculated and executed to perfection.
"I didn't think about it [the chase behind], I was just focussing on pulling as many watts as I could," laughed the 23-year-old.
"Until 100m from the finish line, I was not thinking about the win – of course, I was thinking about it – but I was not telling myself "I'm going to win", so I didn't think about it."
It may be some time before it properly sets in how important this French win is for the race and Kerbaol but she's now got the general classification to focus on, having almost taken the yellow jersey and moved into second overall just 16 seconds off Niewiadoma's lead.
"I don't want to put myself under pressure of a result. I'm just living every moment as I can," said Kerbaol. "Of course, I want the team and I to be clever in our strategy. But I don't want to tell myself OK now I want to go for the yellow jersey, or I want to keep this place, I just want to give as much as I can, be clever in the race, and then we will see."
