Juliette Labous (Team DSM) has said a top five result is her ‘most realistic’ ambition at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift ahead of a climb-heavy final weekend that should suit the French climber.
Labous is currently seventh on GC, 1:19 down on yellow jersey Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma), having lost a few more seconds on Friday when Vos took bonus points with the stage 6 victory.
“A bit hectic, but actually for our team it’s going quite good,” Labous said of the first five stages. “And also for me, no crash, no puncture, no lost time on GC so actually pretty good days and nice with the victory of Lorena [Wiebes] yesterday.”
With less than 25km to go on stage 6, her teammate Wiebes crashed alongside Lotte Kopecky (Team SD Worx) and Alena Amialiusik (Canyon-SRAM), with Wiebes finishing 7:34 behind the stage winner.
The general classification battle began to take shape as early as stage 3, when a group of overall contenders finished a minute ahead of the rest of the race in Éperany. For Labous, this wasn’t a surprise.
“I expected it a bit because I knew it was already going to be a bit hard,” she said. “But mostly I think tomorrow and Sunday will be the most time gaps that we can see. I think there will be a lot of changes still.”
The 23-year-old will be hoping those changes go in her favour, and is eyeing a move into the top five as her goal for the remainder of the race.
“I think top five is the most realistic,” she said. “But of course I would sign directly for a podium, but I think it can be a bit hard. But who knows, I will fight to the end to see what I can do.”
Winner atop the 1,743-metre high Passo Maniva in the Giro Donne, Labous is looking forward to her preferred terrain of longer climbs over the weekend, and she has shown her climbing legs this July. She admits, however, that her win in Italy does mean she may be a watched rider on the final two stages.
“I think I have a bit less freedom,” she said. “Anyway at the Giro, I wasn’t really allowed to go whatsoever, only when I’d lost time on GC, so I think they will for sure look at me, but I think it will be more about the legs than rider attacking style.”
Though stage 8 will host the Planches des Belles Filles finale of the Tour de France on Sunday, stage 7 features three big climbs and may be in some respects the harder day of the weekend.
“The combination of both [is hard] because on paper I think Saturday is way harder actually than Sunday, and when I rode it I felt that it was really tough,” Labous said. “But Sunday is after Saturday so I think we will be tired and we will feel it a bit, the stage from Saturday. I think both of them will be really hard.”
As well as having a good race in terms of her results, Labous celebrated the crowds and support for the home riders at the long-awaited Tour de France Femmes.
“It’s special. If you look around, like nobody there’s no one at our bus and now there’s always a lot of people and along the road I see signs like ‘allez Juliette’ and we see so many people.
“It’s definitely motivating. There’s some pressure but I actually like it, it’s good pressure.”
