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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Michael Butler

Tour de France Femmes: Demi Vollering takes lead after stages two and three – as it happened

Tour de France Femmes Demi Vollering Rotterdam
Demi Vollering on her way to the yellow jersey in Rotterdam.
Demi Vollering on her way to the yellow jersey in Rotterdam. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP

Summary

What a day of Tour de France action, Jeremy Whittle’s race report will be along shortly.

Having won stage one on Monday, Charlotte Kool went back-to-back to take stage two as well, pipping Lorena Wiebes in a sprint finish to consolidate her position at the top of the GC standings. But the margins are so fine in these early stages, and Vollering’s 7min25secs in the time trial this afternoon was enough for the 2023 champion to take back the yellow jersey by just five seconds. It would have been really interesting to see if Grace Brown hadn’t got that puncture, but as Kanye West once said, I guess we’ll never know. Congrats to Vollering, a sensational ride and a brilliant post-race interview to match.

Stage four is an absolute classic, Valkenburg to Liège. Loads of tough climbs on a brutal 122km run. Liège-Bastogne-Liège is seen as the hardest one-day race on the cycling calendar, and tomorrow’s stage takes in much of that route tomorrow.

Tune in for that tomorrow. Thanks for joining me today.

Charlotte Kool is the next to speak in front of the cameras, having lost the yellow jersey.

I wanted to keep the yellow jersey. But I gave my all. No regrets. It was really special to wear yellow in front of the home fans here. It’s a day I will remember forever.

Vollering speaks to the cameras. This was the last stage that finishes in the Netherlands, tomorrow’s stage finishes in Liège, Belgium, and Vollering is in tears of happiness after winning the stage in front of home Dutch fans. She can barely get the words out. A really special interview!

I really didn’t see this coming. I had no idea that I could do this today. I’m really surprised. I had no expectations. I really wasn’t even thinking of the podium. The first days were just days that I needed to survive.

Today, I was already thinking of stage four, a stage I really love. I did two power naps today after stage two. Before the start, I just flew into it. I stayed so calm. It was a strange day for me. It’s nice that I have the yellow jersey. It’s up to the other teams to take it.

Updated

Provisional top five of the stage three time trial:

1. Demi Vollering
2. Chloé Dygert, at 5”
3. Loes Adegeest, at 5”
4. Cédrine Kerbaol, at 5”
5. Kristen Faulkner, at 6”

Kool’s finish, 25 seconds behind Vollering, means she loses the yellow jersey by just five seconds. Small margins.

Demi Vollering wins stage three time trial! Vollering also takes the yellow jersey!

Just Kool, wearing the yellow jersey, remains on the course. She is not going to beat Vollering, and crosses the line in 7min50secs! Vollering wins the time trial and also moves into the yellow jersey, top of the GC standings!

Updated

Vollering looks nervous in the leader’s hot seat, but her time of 7min25secs is looking increasingly likely to win the stage now. Just two riders to go, now. Ahtosalo finishes with 7min52secs, but that’s not a bad time for the GC standings.

Second in the GC standings, Anniina Ahtosalo, has around 2km to go. Vos is hurtling down the home straight, but she’s not going to beat Vollering. Vos finishes in 7min43secs, 18 seconds off the lead.

Updated

Lorena Wiebes, who was just pipped in the sprint by Kool in the stage two sprint finish earlier this morning, is riding in such a gruelling low gear. She’s nearing the finish now.

The wearer of the yellow jersey, Charlotte Kool, is the next down the ramp in front of a home crowd.

Marianne Vos, still one of the most complete bike racers in the world and a veteran of 22 time trial victories in her career, is off the ramp. Could the 37-year-old contend here?

French rider Cédrine Kerbaol, of Ceratizit–WNT Pro Cycling, with a very good time of 7min35secs. She is currently fourth, as things stand. Chapeau!

Updated

A nice camera angle of Vollering, here, on the home straight.

Could Charlotte Kool make it three stage wins from three? The dsm–firmenich PostNL rider is getting ready for her start. Just like many riders, Kool is keeping cool is a special vest to keep her core temperature down. Unlike any others riders, she is wearing a yellow jersey underneath. It’s a balmy 28°C in Rotterdam today.

Demi Vollering, our defending TdF champion, is our new time trial leader!

The Dutch rider absolutely emptied the tank there. What a finish. In the first two stages, Vollering has spoken at her frustration at how things panned out. Perhaps she used that frustration to good use here. She finishes five seconds ahead of Dygert! A time of 7min25secs. Wow!

We’re into the final 500m. Vollering is grimacing as she flies down the home straight. She’s out of the saddle. This is going to be close!

Vollering is level with Dygert at the time split! She has just over 1km to go. Can the defending champion snatch a surprise stage win here in the time trial? She has only won three time trial in her career to date. What a place to win your fourth …

Another GC contender, Markus, finishes just seven seconds adrift of the leaders. That’s a really strong ride from the Team Visma–Lease a Bike star.

Demi Vollering, defending Tour de France champion and the overall favourite, is the next cab off the rank. She’s not a serious contender for today’s stage, but will hope to limit any losses and stay in the mix.

Less than a second separates the top three riders: Dygert, Adegeest, Faulkner.

Riejanne Markus, of Team Visma–Lease a Bike, is the next major contender to go off the ramp. She has targeted a stage victory in the time trial.

This was Adegeest’s reaction to losing the lead.

Chloé Dygert is our new leader!

The American takes the lead, beating Adegeest’s time by just 0.17 seconds! A time of 7min30secs. The camera pans to a rueful Adegeest in the leader’s booth. Dygert, meanwhile, is absolutely empty, doubled over her bike at the finish line as she gets assistance from her Canyon–SRAM team.

Anna Henderson is approaching the home straight! The British rider is also going to finish just outside Adegeest’s time, six seconds adrift. It really puts into perspective how impressive Adegeest’s ride was.

Faulkner finishes just 0.77 seconds behind our leader, Adegeest! Wow, Faulkner was one of the favourites here but Adegeest’s time is holding up so far. But with Henderson and Dygert out on the course, perhaps we will have a new leader soon.

Dygert launches herself off the ramp! The American is off! Not sure how much a nose piercing weighs, but the 27-year-old is sporting one today.

Dygert, the pre-stage favourite and world time trial champion, is doing her final checks. We’re getting into the business end of things here.

British time trial champion Anna Henderson, meanwhile, is also out. She has won short, punchy prologues in the past.

Kristen Faulkner, a former rower and investment banker (and current Olympic road race champion) who only took up cycling in 2017 when she started riding around Central Park, is out on the course.

No! Van Dijk finishes just one second out from compatriot Adegeest, in a time of 7min31secs. The FDJ–Suez rider keeps the lead, with Van Dijk in second.

Ellen van Dijk, of Lidl–Trek, is right on time with Adegeest! The Dutch rider is going flat out as she approaches the final turn. This is going to be tight! Will we have a new leader?

Chloé Dygert, the pre-stage favourite here, has been speaking to the cameras about her tactics for this time trial:

All gas. From the start. Throw up at the finish.

French champion Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Human Powered Health) finishes in sixth place as things stand, 18 seconds adrift of our leader Adegeest.

Grace Brown speaks to the cameras:

Really quite disappointing that I can’t make it through 6.3kms without a puncture. I needed to keep going and respect the race. It just would have been nice to finish on the golden bike. It’s been great riding in the Netherlands, there’s so many people here, but I have to say I was just focusing on the course. All the corners are pretty fast, though, it’s not complicated.

Updated

Brown finishes just 19 seconds off the leader, Adegeest, in a time of 7min49secs. Remarkable really. She surely would be our new leader if not for that puncture. I estimate it cost her around 30 seconds in time.

Puncture for Grace Brown, the Olympic time trial champion!

Disaster for the Australian! Brown puts her hand up signalling to her FDJ–Suez team that she needs to change her bike. She’s off the golden bike, and after a brief stoppage, she sets off again on the new bike. That is a costly incident though, although completely not her fault of course!

Lizzie Deignan, 2015 world road race champion, finished with a time of 7min 54secs, 24 seconds off the pace of our leader Adegeest. I enjoyed this piece we did before the Olympics on the British rider.

We should mention that the road surface is quite bumpy in Rotterdam, particularly as there are so many tram lines to go over.

Here comes Grace Brown, the Olympic time trial champion. She was playing her chances down in pre-stage interviews, suggesting that this course was almost too short for her (favouring some of the most powerful sprinters) but she is certainly one of the favourites here and will definitely be going for a stage win here.

Updated

Australia’s Neve Bradbury, of Canyon–SRAM, has given an interesting interview after posting her own time of 8min 16secs. She said that she wasn’t riding on “pure vibes”, alluding to the fact that most riders aren’t measuring their power, basically just going full throttle because it is such a short course.

Bradbury also mentioned that there was gravel on one of the corners, so maybe something to watch out for in the remaining riders. So far, thankfully, there have been no crashes in this third stage.

Given the 6.3km distance, we’re obviously not going to see massive gaps in the GC standings. Most will try and tuck in, not empty the legs and stay in contention.

The average speed of the riders round this course is a touch over 50km/hr, which is approximately the speed of a tiger sprinting at full pelt. Not sure which of those is more relatable. But all you need to know is: the riders and the tigers can shift it.

Updated

Loes Adegeest, of FDJ–Suez, is our new leader, bringing the time to beat to 7min30secs.

Elena Pirrone, the 21-year-old Roland rider, has posted the fastest time so far: 7min 44secs.

Updated

There are lots of candidates for the stage win. Here are the 11 national time trial champions participating this afternoon in Rotterdam.

Riejanne Markus (Netherlands)
Kimberley Le Court (Mauritius)
Katrine Aalerud (Norway)
Anniina Ahtosalo (Finland)
Grace Brown (Australia)
Christine Majerus (Luxembourg)
Audrey Cordon-Ragot (France)
Emma Norsgaard (Denmark)
Margarita Misyurina (Uzbekistan)
Antri Christoforou (Cyprus)
Anna Henderson (Great Britain)

Here are my three picks for stage three. It won’t shock you that I have picked the top three from the Olympic podium, although in a slightly different order.

Chloe Dygert: won an Olympic gold medal on the track. She crashed on the Olympic time trial and still came away with a bronze medal. Dygert is probably the favourite here.

Grace Brown: the Olympic time trial champion is sporting a gold helmet and a gold bike here. “It’s not that technical, most of the corners are pretty wide”, says the Australian. Well that put my preview in its place.

Anna Henderson: last year in the World Championships in Glasgow, British rider Henderson just missed out on a podium finish in the time trial but won silver in the time trial at the Olympics, although medal was probably helped by Dygert’s crash.

Coles-Lyster (Roland), our first rider, has finished with a time of 8min3secs. I’m not sure that is a particularly strong time. We can expect the leaders to get towards the seven-minute mark.

As I mentioned before, this will be a huge test for the riders’ legs, despite both stage two and three being relatively short. But there are also three very technical sections to this time trial: the 180 degree about turn around a roundabout and attacking the two bridges, Erasmusbrug and Willemsbrug, which both require sharp turns as you enter and exit.

Stage three: the time trial begins!

Maggie Coles-Lyster, of DNA Pro Cycling, is the first rider off the ramp!

Sorry to say that unlike Roseman-Gannon and Pate, Dilyxine Miermont has been forced to quit this year’s race, following a crash of her own earlier today on stage two.

On to stage three, then. Here are a couple of nice illustrations of what to expect. It’s a super short course at just 6.3km, so the pace is going to be intense.

There was a nasty crash during stage two in the final 3km, with Australian pair Ruby Roseman-Gannon and Amber Pate both coming off in the peloton, which meant a host of riders around them missed out on the sprint finish. Delighted to say that both Roseman-Gannon and Pate are OK and fit enough to compete in this afternoon’s time trial.

Hello everyone (again). Before we build-up to the time trial, which is due to start in the next few minutes, let’s recap what went on with stage two earlier today, with Charlotte Kool going back-to-back with stage victories.

Right, that’s all done for stage two. Congratulations to Charlotte Kool, who has won both stages thus far. Surely she couldn’t make it a hat-trick in this afternoon’s time trial stage three?

I’ll be back here around 2pm BST, 3pm local time for the time trial. Do join me for more live updates. Until then!

Attention turns now to stage three, which comes later today at around 2.10pm BST. It’s a time trial around Rotterdam, just 6.3km long, so not too far off a flat out sprint. It is mainly along the main boulevards in the city, with two technical sections across two bridges, Erasmusbrug and Willemsbrug. We are expecting each rider to take between seven and eight minutes to complete it.

Will be really interesting to see how the riders recover from this morning’s stage two, and prepare for stage three. I wonder if the time trial might favour some of the track cyclists we saw at the Olympics, as they are used to racing more than once in a day. Watch out for Lily Williams, who won gold in the team pursuit for the USA in Paris. Could we also see Christian Faulkner make an impression on stage three after her Olympic road race triumph?

Our leader in yellow, Charlotte Kool, is just warming down after stage two. Presumably she is going to go and lie down first.

Here are highlights of the final kilometre. That kick from Kool at the very end was special.

Here are the GC standings

Kool leads the way in yellow, having won both stages so far. Demi Vollering is 20 seconds off the pace, in 24th place.

Provisional top five on stage two

1. Charlotte Kool (dsm-firmenich PostNL)
2. Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime)
3. Marianne Vos (Visma|Lease a Bike)
4. Lotta Henttala (EF-Oatly-Cannondale)
5. Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek)

Updated

Overall favourite Demi Vollering, SD Worx–Protime teammate of Wiebes, also speaks:

It was really stressful, really fast. It’s sad that we didn’t win, it would have been nice if Lorena [Wiebes] won today, maybe she went a bit early. I think [finishing second] has made her even more motivated for the time trial.

Kool’s English dsm–firmenich PostNL teammate, Pfeiffer Georgi, also spoke to the cameras:

I think we all had confidence [in Kool]. She’s just so fast. We knew it was going to be crazy. It was even more technical than yesterday, with all the road furniture. We didn’t want to be in front, we wanted to come from behind with speed.

Kool: 'Dreams come true quite fast these days'

Kool speaks to the cameras after her stage two win:

We were a bit far, but I tried to stay calm. I launched my sprint, and it was enough. We were in control the whole day. It was a hectic course, but I like it. Dreams come true quite fast these days. First yesterday [in the yellow jersey], now today. I guess I’m stronger than ever, I didn’t expect this

Kool certainly looked like she had more in the legs there. Wiebes was at the Olympics, while Kool has chosen to focus on the TdF, and I wonder if that has played a part here. Wiebes’s preparations – travel, nutrition, training, her mental prep – have not been ideal going into this. The same could be said for Vos.

Updated

Woooooooooow. I’m watching a replay of that sprint finish back, and Kool timed that to absolute perfection. Wiebes got a great lead out from her SD Worx–Protime teammates, but Kool had a huge burst of acceleration with around 100 metres to go, and the momentum saw her pass her compatriot with just a few metres to go.

Charlotte Kool wins stage two after a dramatic sprint!

Vos is among the riders at the front, but Charlotte Kool, in yellow, comes from nowhere (two or three riders back) and pips Wiebes to the line, adding to her stage one victory! Wow!

Updated

We’re into the sprint finish! Charlotte Kool and Lorena Wiebes are there, with Vos also there!

Huge crash on a bridge with 3km to go!

Australia’s Amber Pate goes down near the front and a large section of the peloton is forced to stop on such a narrow bridge. Disaster! Ruby Roseman-Gannon also involved. Only a portion of riders of the front escaped that!

A huge right turn, as riders decelerate from 62km/hr to cross a bridge. We are into the Rotterdam city centre now. Stage favourites Charlotte Kool and Lorena Wiebes are well placed, just 3km to go.

Obviously. It was a good effort, but ultimately De Keersmaeker wasn’t able to hold off the peloton.

I really can’t express enough how flat this stage is, hardly surprising in the Netherlands. Marianne Vos is on home turf, the Dutch superstar is well positioned about 10 riders back from the front. She slightly misjudged yesterday’s finish into the Hague. “Fifth is not really satisfying but it’s a bunch sprint so anything can happen,” said Vos, before agreeing that positioning was the problem. “I was a bit too far back in the final kilometre, so I couldn’t sprint for the win. I still did everything I could, but Kool turned out to be the fastest today.”

The riders are currently zooming along at around 45km/hr. Just six kilometres to go.

De Keersmaeker is caught!

The peloton eats up the road and swallows De Keersmaeker. Just under 10km to go!

It’s a huge peloton of 147 riders, but there is a fair amount of road furniture – roundabouts, narrow funnels of road, bridges as the cyclists make their way into Rotterdam. That means that the peloton does elongate somewhat, which could play a big part in the bunch finish.

Speaking of the peloton, they are closing on our stage two leader, Audrey De Keersmaeker, whose lead is now down to 15 seconds with just under 12m left.

Today, Nikola Noskova (Cofidis Women Team), Yanina Kuskova (Tashkent City Women Professional Cycling Team) and Mieke Docx (Lotto Dstny Ladies) have been involved in a crash, while Dilyxine Miermont (St Michel - Mavic - Auber93 WE) and Grace Brown (FDJ-Suez) also had a collision, although the latter pair made it back into the peloton.

There have been more crashes today after the drama of yesterday. A crash in the neutral zone on stage one led to the British rider Natalie Grinczer falling and then abandoning. The Tashkent City Women’s team had a torrid first day and lost four of their seven riders.

Here is the stage one report from Monday.

There are some big names missing here: Lotte Kopecky, who raced in the final day of competition on Sunday in the Olympic velodrome and was second overall to her SD Worx Protime teammate Demi Vollering in last year’s Tour de France Femmes, was one of those who prioritised the Olympics. Elisa Longo Borghini, winner of the women’s Giro d’Italia, has also pulled out because of the painful aftermath of a recent crash while out training.

Vollering remains the overall favourite again this year.

Preamble

It’s a wild two parter today at the Tour de France Femmes: first up is the stage two run from Dordrecht to Rotterdam, a 69.7km race along the flat, with a sprint finish. There is around 18km left of that, so we’ll dive straight into that now.

Audrey De Keersmaeker is out in front on her own, and has around a 28 second lead on the rest of the peloton. Not sure she is going to hold onto that, but she will surely get the combative rider of the day award.

The stage-three time trial will also take place later: a 6.3km ride around Rotterdam. But we’ll come to that later.

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