As it happened: Crash marred finale distracts from dominant sprint display

By last updated

The peloton will race a relatively flatter stage 3 starting in La Gacilly to Angers with a total of 162km

Refresh

Bonjour and welcome to our live page for stage 3 of the Tour de France Femmes 2025.

Day three starts in La Gacilly and finishes in Angers after 163.5km of racing. The second longest stage of the race.

The major news coming out this morning is that Italian champion and winner of the Giro d'Italia Women, Elisa Longo-Borghini (UAE Team ADQ), has left the race due to gastrointestinal issues.

Some other news coming out of the race in our newsroom...

The riders will start the neutralised zone in about 20 minutes time.

The riders are all signing on before the start of the third stage in La Gacilly.

The GC is finely balanced going into today. If Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) takes any bonus seconds today then she will reclaim yellow from Kim Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal) as they sit on the exact same time in GC.

Le Court starts today decked out head to toe in yellow as the Mauritian rider gets her and Africa's big moment.

Neutral Start

163.5km to go

Attack!

Kraak dragged back and the fight starts over again to form the break.

Now that Elisa Longo-Borghini has left the race there are 146 riders starting the third stage.

The weather today is cloudy with the temperature at 22.4°c with very light, almost non-existent, wind.

Nine riders have a small gap on the peloton as the break continues to try and form. Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal) is involved in the move.

The group grew with 12 riders but has now been caught by the peloton once again.

Attack!

Brauße are joined by Marthe Truyen (Fenix-Deceuninck) and Anneke Dijkstra (VolkerWessels) with a gap of 19" on the peloton.

150km to go

Four riders now go on the attack.

Confirmed riders with 17" on the peloton:

Margot Vanpachtenbeke (VolkerWessels) is trying to bridge across to the four leaders.

Vanpachtenbeke is 14" behind the leaders with the peloton now at 30" with the break looking like it has finally formed.

The chase of Vanpachtenbeke seems to be fading as she is now at 24", just off the front of the peloton which are at 30" from the leaders.

The counter move has been caught with the four leaders still lading the race by 30" over the chasing bunch with 144km to go.

There are a couple of chasers trying to bridge to the leading four riders. Aude Biannic (Movistar) is the closest at 55" with another just in front of the peloton who are just over a minute back from the front of the race.

140km to go

The gaps grow as the leading four riders have 1'20" over the first chaser Franziska Brauße (Ceratizit) then 1'30" over Alison Avoine (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93) and 2'05" back to the peloton.

Brauße and Avoine have joined forces and are working together to close the 1'40" gap to the four leaders. The peloton are now 2'35" from the front and 55" from the chasers.

The chasers are losing yet more ground as their gap drifts out to over 2 minutes.

Onto the 1.4km long cat 4 climb of the Côte de la Richardière go the break as they now have almost 3 minutes on the peloton.

QoM (Côte de la Richardière)

Brauße and Avoine seem to have given up as they are now 2'30" from the leaders and just 20" from the peloton.

As the peloton's gap to the leaders goes over 3 minutes, riders are busy calling for the team cars as feeding is open for the day. The chasers are just about to be caught by the bunch.

120km to go

The gap continues to grow as the break now have 3'44" on the bunch.

110km to go

Crash!

Morgane Coston (Roland) and Valentina Cavallar (Arkea-B&B Hotels) were others to hit the deck but are back riding.

The peloton are finally starting to work their way into the breakaway advantage. The maximum gap was 4'45" but now it has dropped down to 4'08".

SD Worx-Protime are setting the higher tempo on the front of the peloton for Lorena Wiebes.

The race is changing as the race into the second third of the stage.

100km to go

Blanka Vas (SD Worx-Protime) is the rider setting the tempo in the peloton. The gap is still hovering just below 4 minutes between the pack and the break.

It has been an excellent effort by this leading quad of riders but their gap is slowly decreasing to the peloton.

The whole of SD Worx-Protime are setting the pace in the bunch with 3'36" up to the four rider break.

80km to go

Interestingly, Marianne Vos is said to be out of the back with her teammate, Eva van Agt. No information as to what has happened but they are about 30" behind the peloton but are working their way through the cars.

60km to go

Just 10km to the intermediate sprint. The gap to the four leaders is down to 2'30". It is unlikely that the peloton will catch the break but they are trying.

Just over two and a half minutes between the breakaway and the peloton.

Intermediate Sprint (Vern-d'Anjou)

Attack!

Crash!

Gladys Verhulst-Wild is the AG Insurance-Soudal rider down. Eugenia Bujak (Cofidis) was another down.

The peloton has now split with several trying to get back to the main peloton including Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal), Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Deceuninck) and Liane Lippert (Movistar).

Uno-X Mobility's sprinter, Linda Zanetti, was caught out in the crash as well and is out of the back at the moment but thy are fighting their way back.

Clara Koppenburg and Victoire Berteau of Cofidis are the last riders on the road. They are over 2 minutes back from the peloton.

30km to go

Vollering's move was a strange one. She did stretch the bunch out and cause some chaos but she didn't get away for long.

Chloe Dygert (Canyon-SRAM-ZondaCrypto) working hard for her team on the front of the peloton.

Lotte Kopecky with her SD Worx-Protime leader, Lorena Wiebes, come to the front of the peloton as the bunch go through a very technical section. All the big GC and sprint names are close to the front, though.

Dygert returns to the front with her Canyon-SRAM-ZondaCrypto leader, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, on her wheel. All the biggest names are very keen to keep safe.

20km to go

SD Worx-Protime take full control of the peloton with 18km to go and this is really reducing the gap up to the break. Has anyone in the break been saving something for a late movre to try and take glory?

Several teams are now battling with SD Worx-Protime with Uno-X Mobility, FDJ-Suez and Liv-AlUla-Jayco being the most keen to lead the bunch.

Attack in break!

10km to go

Attack in break!

Once again, Jackson launches again. Soto and Martin are able to follow and Martin launches over the top.

Now Soto tries and she gets a small gap and goes clear. The Chilean national champion has done the least turns on the front of the break and it is showing as she picks a perfect point to launch.

Latimier has been caught by the peloton.

Soto now has fully dropped Martin and Jackson but she only has 20" on the peloton.

Jackson and Martin attack back up to Soto but the peloton is now rapidly gaining.

Breakaway caught

5km to go

4km to go and Lidl-Trek is moving up for Elisa Balsamo. Visma-Lease a Bike working for Marianne Vos. Wiebes only has one rider but that rider is Kopecky, could be worse.

Crash!

2km to go and Anna van der Breggen leads what is left of the peloton for Wiebes who is getting the full magic carpet ride to the finish.

Flamme Rouge!

500 metres to go and Marie Le Net leads for Wollaston.

Lorena Wiebes of SD Worx-Protime wins stage three of the Tour de France Femmes 2025 in a carnage filled finish in Angers.

Stage three top 10

Marianne Vos took the 6" bonus in 2nd place today and regains the yellow jersey from Kim Le Court after a day out of the leader's jersey.

GC after stage 3

There is an awful lot to unpack from today's stage. Make sure to keep an eye on our home page for new articles and reaction from today. A good place to start is with out post race report...

Latest on Cyclingnews