As it happened: Sprint rivals go toe-to-toe on Tour de France Femmes stage 4

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Stage 4 brings the peloton from Saumur to Poitiers for a total of 128km

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Bonjour and welcome to our live updates of the fourth stage of the Tour de France Femmes 2025.

Today's stage begins in the town of Saumur and travels 130.7km on largely flat terrain to the finish town of Poitiers and an expected sprint.

The main news today is that Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) will start the stage despite crashing hard in yesterday's finale into Angers. Read more in the link below...

Some other relevant stories to the race are here...

The riders are due to set off in the neutral zone in just over 20 minutes.

The riders are all set after sign on with are large crowd of fans in Saumur for today's stage start.

Neutral Start

130.7km to go

The early moves, including one by a Cofidis rider, are all brought back and the peloton is together again.

It was a star studded front row at the start of today's stage...

Not many attacks to form the early break and the peloton is all together. It isn't too too surprising as there is a long wait to the first action of the day with the intermediate sprint coming in about 85km.

There are 145 riders starting today after Rebecca Koerner (Uno-X Mobility) was a DNS this morning.

One rider from Picnic-PostNL has launched on the attack on her own.

All together yet again.

Attack!

There is a counter attack of two riders to try and join Koch. They are Valerie Demey (VolkerWessels) and Fiona Mangan (Winspace-Orange-Seal).

Mangan and Demey have been caught. Koch is out front on her own with a gap of 20" still.

Koch caught and the peloton is all back together yet again.

100km to go

Attack!

Celia Le Mouel (Ceratizit) is trying to bridge the gap to Rijnbeek. She is 43" behind the leader. The peloton are 50" down on the leader.

Another rider on the move is Elyne Roussel (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93).

90km to go

Victoire Berteau (Cofidis) has now also gone on the attack to try and form a four rider break. Currently there are four riders in an individual pursuit of each other.

Rijnbeek has 33" on Le Mouel, 1'03" on Roussel, 1'24" on Berteau and 1'49" on the peloton.

Berteau and Roussel have been dragged back by the peloton. Le Mouel is still in the chase of Rijnbeek.

The wind speed appears to be changing to a crosswind and the gusts are now heading up to close to 30kph.

80km to go

Le Mouel has been caught but new attacks are coming from Franziska Koch (Picnic-PostNL) and Ana Victoria Magalhães (Movistar).

Magalhães and Koch join Rijnbeek with the gap still dropping to the breakaway.

The gap now extending to 1'05" between the break and the peloton. About 30km to the intermediate sprint.

70km to go

Mechanical

The peloton is in bits! They just rode through a very technical town and have now come out onto fast open roads. The wind doesn't seem strong enough for echelons to form.

Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal) and Cedrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) have both missed the split and are in the second group.

The wind is not strong enough to cause further splits, though. Liane Lippert (Movistar) also in the second group on the road.

60km to go

Koch and Magalhães have distanced Rijnbeek as their time gap goes back above a minute again.

Rijnbeek has been caught by the peloton. Koch and Magalhães have a gap of 1'36" on the peloton.

50km to go

5km to the intermediate sprint.

Intermediate sprint (Soudun)

40km to go

Just 10km to the top of the only QoM of the day, the 900 metre long Côte de Marigny.

QoM (Côte de Marigny)

Bike change

Koch and Magalhães have just over a minute on the peloton as Schweinberger makes her way back through the cars to get back to the peloton again after her bike change.

Crash!

20km to go

The peloton is going at a very good speed but the leading duo are still holding them off. However, Blanka Vas (SD Worx-Protime) comes to the front to try and kill the break. She leads her entire team in their leadout train.

Multiple riders caught in splits after the crash including Ane Santesteban (Labora Kutxa-Fundacion Euskadi) and her teammate Usoa Ostalaza.

Cofidis, Visma-Lease a Bike, Uno-X Mobility and Picnic-PostNL are challenging SD Worx-Protime on the front of the peloton.

The peloton have reduced the gap to 40" up to Koch and Magalhães.

Interesting that FDJ-Suez are right up to the front of the bunch but their sprinter and 3rd place finisher yesterday, Ally Wollaston, is right at the back of the bunch all on her own.

SD Worx-Protime reclaim almost full control of the peloton. Still 40" between them and the leading duo.

10km to go

The peloton now appear to have Koch and Magalhães under control. Just 20" between them.

Lidl-Trek have moved to the front of the bunch for Elisa Balsamo. The former world champion crashed yesterday but her team are keen to work for her today.

The gap is plummeting now as Vas is really turning the screw.

Franziska Koch has won the most combative rider of the day for the second time this race.

Canyon-SRAM-ZondaCrypto, SD Worx-Protime, Uno-X Mobility and Lidl-Trek lead the peloton with just 12" up to Koch and Magalhães.

Canyon-SRAM-ZondaCrypto have been superb at looking aftr Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney at this race so far with Chloe Dygert basically keeping at the front of the bunch all on her own.

The break are still pushing hard to try and stay away but they are well in sight of the peloton and the forming lead out trains.

Crash!

5km to go

The breakaway are finally caught.

Bike change

SD Worx-Protime just getting pushed out a little bit as Human Powered Health and Visma-Lease a Bike take control of the bunch.

3km to go and SD Worx-Protime come to the front yet again. World champion, Lotte Kopecky, is taking a while to get to the front for Lorena Wiebes but has now made it. Anna van der Breggen leading the way.

EF Education-Oatly drag Noemi Ruegg up to the front of the bunch and into a good position.

Jelena Eric (Movistar) comes to the front for Liane Lippert. Kopecky now takes over with Wiebes in 2nd wheel. 2km to go.

Flamme Rouge

Uno-X Mobility take over the lead with Le Court, Vos, Wiebes all following each other.

500 metres to go.

Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) wins stage four of the Tour de France Femmes 2025 just half a bike ahead of Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike).

Wiebes almost didn't manage to get through the gap to open her sprint as Chloe Dygert almost shut the door on the green jersey. But she and Vos found the gap and battled for the stage yet again.

Very solid third place for Lara Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ). She was close to Wiebes and Vos and well ahead of the rest of her rivals.

Stage 4 top 10

GC after stage 4

Make sure to keep an eye on our homepage for all the latest news and analysis. The best place to start is with our post race report...

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