‘The legs exploded’ – Marianne Vos left unsatisfied with fifth on Tour de France opener after getting positioning wrong

For Marianne Vos, stage 1 of the Tour de France Femmes wasn’t the home fairytale in the Netherlands she’d hoped for, starting her sprint too far back on Charlotte Kool and being forced to settle for fifth when her legs “exploded”.

Visma-Lease A Bike opted not to try and lead out the two-time stage winner at the Tour, aiming simply to latch onto the wheel of pre-stage favourite Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) to try and fight for the win. Wiebes had an untimely mechanical in the final 500 metres which ruled her out of the running but Vos wasn’t in the position she wanted when that happened.