Lorena Wiebes finally takes Tour de France Femmes green jersey home after three years with bad luck

The special classification jerseys at the Tour de France Femmes
The special classification jerseys winners at the Tour de France Femmes (Image credit: Getty Images)

The wearers of the Tour de France Femmes special classification jerseys – Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) in green, Élise Chabbey (FDJ-Suez) in polka-dots, and Nienke Vinke (Picnic PostNL) in white – did not see a serious challenge to their leads in the respective classifications on the stage 9 finale in Châtel.

They each celebrated as the respective winners and were able to take their jerseys home after the stage, which, for Wiebes in particular, meant there was a feeling of relief after three unsuccessful attempts to win the points classification green jersey.

“This is finally a Tour de France without bad luck [for me]. In the first edition, I crashed out, in the second edition, I got sick, and last year, it was also not our best Tour. Finally, everything fell into place, and I'm really grateful to the team that they gave me this chance to go for it,” said Wiebes before stepping onto the podium in Châtel to receive the green jersey for the final time.

In 2022, Wiebes had won the opening stage on the Champs-Élysées as well as stage 5, but then crashed out on stage 7, and Marianne Vos won the points classification. The next year, Wiebes won stage 3 but had to abandon the race again, and in 2024, she did not win any stages and finished behind Vos in the points classification.

Chabbey spent the whole day in the gruppetto, paying the price for her attacking racing on the earlier eight stages, and on the first climb of the day, Maëva Squiban (UAE Team ADQ) sprinted for the mountain points from the group of favourites behind lone attacker Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime).

“It was great that she was able to help me defend the jersey like that,” said Chabbey, thanking Vollering for her effort.

“I am speechless. It is a huge honour to have worn this jersey from start to finish. It’s a very iconic jersey. OK, it’s not what we came for, but it is still a good prize, and I am very happy,” she continued.

“It was incredible, the crowd was shouting my name, people had written my name on the road, and I saw so many people with polka-dot t-shirts. It was incredible, really, these moments will truly stay with me,” said Chabbey.

“All the other young riders were behind me, so it was mostly about making it to the finish line in a good way,” said Vinke. "But it was a really hard day, and I was completely empty.

"Fortunately, I had Franzi [Koch] with me the whole day. She stayed with me, paced me, and really helped me a lot. It’s really special to win a jersey in a Grand Tour, especially in the Tour de France, as it’s one of the biggest races on the calendar."

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Lukas Knöfler started working in cycling communications in 2013 and has seen the inside of the scene from many angles. Having worked as press officer for teams and races and written for several online and print publications, he has been Cyclingnews’ Women’s WorldTour correspondent since 2018.

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