Tour de France Femmes stage 1: Marianne Vos overtakes teammate Pauline Ferrand-Prévot to take stage win and first yellow jersey in Plumelec

Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) powered to victory on stage 1 of the Tour de France Femmes, outpacing Kim Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal) to the line at the end of the uphill drag in Plumelec and took the first yellow leader’s jersey of the nine-day race.

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike), who attacked inside of 700 metres to go on the Côte de Cadoudal, was reeled in at the line and held on to third place.

Vos received a perfect leadout from her Visma teammates, who took control of a dwindling peloton with five kilometres to go with Ferrand-Prévot as her final leadout woman.

Though she reacted immediately, Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) could not close the gap to the French rider, and Le Court took up the chase with Vos on her wheel.

Vos came around in the final metres to take the victory.

"Actually, the whole race, of course, it was short, so we knew it was going to be nervous. Sometimes, just spread out. But still, you feel the tension in the bunch. And, we wanted to do a lead-out as a team before the final descent, before the corner, to put Pauline and me in a good position. And the girls did such an amazing job. And then Pauline took a gap at 500, 400 metres to go, and she actually had a really good gap," Vos said.

"So, that moment, of course, I looked around and who was coming, and then I saw Kim Le Court coming. She really had a good sprint, so I went with her. And, I didn't know if Pauline was still hanging in for the finish, but in the end, I saw her dropping the speed, so I sprinted with Kim, and we just caught Pauline, which is, of course, a bit of a devil feeling. But I'm so happy with the team effort, and we could make it."

For the winningest rider of all time, and the 2024 overall points winner, taking the yellow jersey on the first day was "really special."

"It's the Tour de France, it's the first day, you really can't describe what it means. And, yes, it's a bonus to take the yellow jersey. I couldn't even think about it up front. So, I'm really thankful for the team, and especially to Pauline here on the final part."

Vos leads the general classification with four seconds on Le Court and six seconds on Ferrand-Prévot. Defending champion Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon–Sram Zondacrypto) is third at 10 seconds back, and Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) is in fourth at 13 seconds back. Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) is in fifth, tied at 15 seconds with Van der Breggen.

How it unfolded

A stacked but nervous field of 154 riders rolled out from Vannes for the 78.2km hilly opener, but a crash in the neutral zone increased the tension after Clara Koppenburg (Cofidis) hit road furniture. Race director Marion Rousse stopped the peloton briefly at kilometre 0 to allow all dropped riders to rejoin.

Immediately after the flag drop, Laura Tomaso (Loboral Kutxa-Fundacion Euskadi) attacked, with Maud Rijnbeek (VolkerWessels) closing a 30-second gap to make it two up the road with 74km to go.

The peloton, with UAE Team ADQ, FDJ-Suez, Visma-Lease a Bike, Canyon-Sram zondacrypto and Picnic-PostNL lined up across the road, keeping the duo on a tight leash as they raced through several small towns, with tight corners.

18 kilometres after making it to the break, Rijnbeek attacked on an uncategorized climb and continued on solo to crest the first QOM of the day, the cat. 4 Côte de Botségalo with a 29-second lead. Eva van Agt (Visma-Lease a Bike) edged out Alison Jackson (EF Education-Oatly) to take the remaining point.

The surge up the climb briefly shelled riders off the back and doomed the solo move, reeling Rijnbeek in with 46 km to go.

Inside of 40km to go, a crash at the back of the peloton took down riders, including Ruby Roseman-Gannon (Liv-AlUla -Jayco), Clémence Latimier (Arkea-B&B Hotels), Karolina Perekitko and Kiara Lynx (both Winspace Orange Seal). All quickly got back onto the bikes to chase back on the accelerating peloton.

The big teams jostled for position at the front as the peloton entered the finishing circuit, driving towards the lone intermediate sprint of the day at the first crossing of the finish line. Behind, Marlen Reusser (Movistar) and Julie Van de Velde (AG Insurance-Soudal) were chasing.

Another crash in the middle of the peloton after a right-hand turn onto the bridge over the Claie River at the bottom of the Côte de Cadoudal took down around 10 riders, including Liane Lippert (Movistar) and Mavi Garcia (Liv-AlUla-Jayco). Lippert quickly received assistance from her teammate Reusser, who had rejoined, while Garcia had to wait for her team car to get a new bike.

European champion Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) outsprinted German champion Franziska Koch (Picnic-PostNL) to take the top points, as Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) led the pack for third. Koch immediately counterattacked over the top, but her move was quickly shut down by the Visma-led peloton.

An ailing Reusser crossed the line alone, followed by the broom wagon, five minutes behind the pack and would later abandon.

Francesca Barale (Picnic-PostNL) took a flyer but was reabsorbed the second time up Cadoudal. Koch attempted another attack, followed by Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (Canyon-Sram zondacrypto), but it was Elise Chabbey (FDJ-Suez) who crested first, to take top points and claim the first polka-dot jersey.

Attacks continued at the front, including another flyer by Koch into a headwind with 8km to go, but she was reeled in a further 1.5km later.

Visma won the positioning battle at the front of the peloton, taking control with 5km to go, with Vos sitting on Ferrand-Prévot’s wheel at the end of her team train. Lidl-Trek did put a rider in the rotation in the final kilometres, but it was all Visma as the peloton went over the bridge to climb Cadoudal for the third and final time.

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