Visma-Lease a Bike were forced to rewrite their Tour de France Femmes race strategy after defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot lost a further 2:35 on stage 5, with Femke de Vries now the team's best-placed rider in the GC.
Ferrand-Prévot could still attack on the slopes of Mont Ventoux to try to win the stage but admitted that her chances of defending her 2025 Tour victory are now borderline non-existent.
"I haven't seen the gap yet but I think it's over. We have to refocus, to change the plan maybe," Ferrand-Prévot said after stage 5.
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"I just fight, I didn't really look at the gap, I just fight to the end. There's nothing I can do more than pushing on the pedals as much as possible. I think I felt good, and on the climb I was still feeling good but I wasn't strong enough to follow."
Visma-Lease a Bike sports director Rutger Tijssen is tasked with changing the team's strategy and pivoting to different ambitions between stage 6 on Thursday and the final stage in Nice on Sunday.
"This is not why we came to the Tour," he admitted via the team regarding Ferrand-Prévot's time loss and the end of her GC hopes.
"Of course, anything can still happen, but things have become more difficult. We have to be realistic about that."
While Ferrand-Prévot slipped to 14th overall after the time trial and then 17th after being dropped on the late climbs on stage 5, de Vries moved up to eighth overall.
She is 3:11 down on Reusser but impressed on Wednesday, finishing in the chase group behind Reusser, Vollering and Niewiadoma-Phinney after being in the attack of the day to anticipate the GC selection.
"Looking at the team as a whole, we saw a very strong performance. Femke and Sarah rode exceptionally well," Tijssen said, also praising Sarah van Dam after she also joined the attack with de Vries.
"Femke has moved into the top ten of the general classification and has a great opportunity to achieve a strong result. There are still four stages to go, and we will do everything we can to keep fighting for good results."
"It was an extremely tough day," De Vries admitted after racing another hilly stage in the heat.
"Our plan was to be part of the breakaway so we could put some pressure on the other GC contenders. I think Sarah and I executed that plan well.
"I had good legs, but unfortunately they were just not good enough to follow on the final climb. Nevertheless, I am incredibly proud of this result."
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