Mavi García (Liv AlUla Jayco) won stage 2 of the Tour de France Femmes, holding off the peloton on the uphill finish in Quimper. The 41-year-old Spaniard attacked 10.8km from the line and went all-in to build a 20-second advantage.
At the flamme rouge, García was still 12 seconds ahead, and although she struggled on the climb and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) made a move from the peloton, nobody pushed on behind, allowing García to hold on and take the victory.
Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) won the sprint of a reduced peloton by several bike lengths while Kim Le Court-Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal) beat Liane Lippert (Movistar) to third place in a photo finish.
Le Court snatched the yellow from Vos' shoulders thanks to her stage finish (Image credit: Getty Images)
The four bonus seconds from that third place put Le Court-Pienaar in the yellow jersey, with stage 1 winner Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) finishing in fifth on the same time.
"I can’t believe it. I’ve had a very complicated year. I was thinking about how many years I’ve been doing this already and if it was time to think about retiring," said García after the finish. "The truth is that I was already thinking about it because this year wasn’t going very well for me, but this gives me a lot of energy.
"I have attacked so many times, I always try, and it never worked out for me. I didn’t believe I could win until I was five metres from the finish line, turned around, and saw they weren’t coming when I thought they would pass me. It’s been a long time since I’ve had such a wonderful feeling."
How it unfolded
After the opening stage in the Morbihan département, stage 2 travelled through Finistère from Brest to Quimper. The 110.4km course included four classified climbs and many more uncategorised hills, making it a continuous up-and-down with hardly any flat stretches.
Still suffering from a crash in the Baloise Ladies Tour, Charlotte Kool (Picnic PostNL) did not start the stage, leaving 152 riders in the race after Marlen Reusser (Movistar) had to abandon on stage 1.
Coincidentally, their teammates Aude Biannic (Movistar) and Franzi Koch (Picnic PostNL) formed the early breakaway, having attacked in the first 10km. Their advantage never exceeded 1:20 minutes, though, and they were caught on the third-category climb of Menez Quelerc’h when Silke Smulders (Liv AlUla Jayco) and polka-dot jersey Élise Chabbey (FDJ-Suez) attacked from the peloton in a bid for the mountain points.
Biannic and Koch made up the day's early breakaway (Image credit: Getty Images)
Smulders was first over the top to take three points, leaving two for Chabbey, and they both decided to keep going after the climb. After an unsuccessful attempt by Christina Schweinberger (Fenix-Deceuninck), Maud Rijnbeek (VolkerWessels) bridged to the front duo with 50km to go.
On the Côte de Locronan, Chabbey and Smulders left Rijnbeek behind again as they went for the mountain points, with Chabbey first at the top. In the peloton, local rider Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) and stage 1 runner-up Le Court-Pienaar set the pace on the climb, 47 seconds behind the front.
As the race was closing in on the finishing circuit around Quimper, local rider Maëva Squiban (UAE Team ADQ) attacked from the peloton and picked up Rijnbeek, who rode with her for a short while but soon dropped back while Squiban bridged to the front before the first ascent of the Côte du Chemin de Trohéir.
Chabbey, Rijnbeek and Smulders led for much of the stage (Image credit: Getty Images)
Chabbey won the mountain sprint, and when the front trio crossed the finish line with one lap of 25.9km to go, they were 42 seconds ahead of the peloton. Chabbey, Squiban, and Smulders took the bonus seconds atop the Pen ar Stang climb in Quimper, but Niewiadoma-Phinney and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike) attacked from the peloton.
When the two GC contenders were brought back just after the 20km mark, the front group was only 15 seconds ahead, and Riejanne Markus (Lidl-Trek) bridged across on her own. But 12km from the finish, the four escapees were reeled in by the peloton that only counted about 60 riders by this point.
Markus successfully bridged to the leaders solo, before they were all caught (Image credit: Getty Images)
García then floated off the front and used the descent into the Côte du Chemin de Trohéir to build a 20-second advantage. Behind, Juliette Labous (FDJ-Suez) attacked into the climb, then Mie Bjørndal Ottestad (Uno-X Mobility) took over. Chabbey set up Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez), who briefly tested her legs but could not force a selection, and after another pull by Ottestad, Chabbey took the last remaining mountain point 11 seconds behind García.
Shirin van Anrooij (Lidl-Trek) launched an attack that was quickly shut down by Chabbey, then Koch and Magdeleine Vallieres (EF Education-Oatly) came to the front but didn’t chase wholeheartedly.
From 2km out, Labous increased the pace. Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) returned to the group after having been dropped on the climb and came to the front to chase, leading the peloton onto the final kilometre with teammate Anna van der Breggen on her wheel, 14 seconds behind García.
Van der Breggen took over briefly, then Niewiadoma-Phinney made her move and strung out the group. Having reduced the gap to García to only three seconds after the steep first half of the climb, Niewiadoma-Phinney and Le Court-Pienaar then looked around to see who else would contribute to closing the gap. Soraya Paladin (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) came to the front in support of the Polish champion but also stopped with 350 metres to go.
Standing up in her pedals and looking around time and again, García went up the almost-flat finishing straight while Ferrand-Prévot wound up the sprint behind. Wiebes came around with her trademark acceleration at the 150-metre mark, but it was too late: García was on the last 50 metres and could raise her arms in triumph on the line.
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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