Stage 2 of the 2023 Tour de France Femmes went to Movistar’s German national champion Liane Lippert, who won from a reduced peloton thinned out by a Cat. 3 climb. Stage 1 victor Lotte Kopecky kept the yellow jersey. Olivia Baril was top Canadian in 24th.
The Course
The second stage brought on the climbing, six categorized ascents spread out in two groupings along 152 km from Clermont-Ferrand to Mauriac. The final climb, Cat. 3 Côte de Trébiac, peaked very close to the finish.
🚲 Stage 2 / Étape 2 🚲
🚩 @ClermontFd 🏁 Mauriac
📏 151,7 km
⏰ 13:25 CEST > 17:31 CEST
⛰ 1×2️⃣c, 1×3️⃣c, 4×4️⃣c
💚 km 112,6
💛#TDFF2023 pic.twitter.com/jqiUJZvxyz— Le Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift (@LeTourFemmes) July 24, 2023
Even before the first categorized climb of the day, the riders had about 30 km of uphill to warm up the legs. The peloton split and then was sewn up and a few digs didn’t last. And then Kiwi Georgia Williams (EF Education-TIBCO-SVB) and German Hannah Ludwig (Uno-X) went clear. The first 37 km were done at 30 km/h.
An early attack brought two riders into the break of stage 2 of @LeTourFemmes : @HannahLudwig02 (@UnoXteam) and Georgia Williams (@GreenEDGEteam) lead the peloton over a minute.
📸 @GettySport pic.twitter.com/PF8ZmHBHeO— UCI_WWT (@UCI_WWT) July 24, 2023
Williams popped over Cat. 4s Côte du Mont-Dore and Côte de la Stèle first, assuming the QOM lead. What followed was a 30-km descent to the valley floor marked by rain. Even with the careful negotiating of curves and corners, gravity helped to hurry the stage along.
Williams and Ludwig didn’t survive to face the race’s first Cat. 2 in the lead. Alison Jackson crashed just after their capture. On Côte des Plaines a couple of moves were extinguished. The KOM lead was at stake. Reigning champ Annemiek van Vleuten and Elisa Longo Borghini were caught up in a crash on the ascent.
Atop Côte des Plaines, Julie Van de Velde (Belgium/Fenix-Deceuninck) moved ahead of Williams in the QOM. After the Cat. 2, a new all-Dutch breakaway trio formed, loped over Côte de Merlhac and Côte de Merlhac, and put Van de Velde’s teammate Yara Kastelijn in the QOM driver’s seat.
One fugitive having crashed out, Kastelijn and ally reached the last climb, Côte de Trébiac (3.4 km of 5.8 percent), just ahead of the peloton. They were instantly overwhelmed, but Kastelijn would wear the red dots at the end of the day.
A high-powered group clambered up the…
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