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Stage 7 of the Tour de France Femmes was never going to be an easy day for the non-climbers with the mountains arriving in full force, but with so many carrying crash wounds and then a brutal long-range attack from Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) to split the field early, the penultimate stage became a race ending one for many.
There were 13 riders who stepped out of the Tour de France Femmes on the day of the 127.1km stage to Le Markstein Fellering, which included three category one climbs. Even before the stage started the crashes of previous days had taken a toll, with stage 4 winner Marlen Reusser (SD Work) suffering from a concussion and therefore registering a DNS, as did sprinter Rachele Barbieri (Liv Racing Xstra).
Then during the stage it wasn’t long before the abandons started, with the pace driven early as a large break pulled away. Lorena Wiebes (Team DSM), nursing the injuries and stitches of a crash on stage 6, climbed off early as did Letizia Borghesi (EF Education-Tibco SVB). There were also further additions to the list of riders not finishing as the stage went on. They included Anne van Rooijen and Nicole Frain of Parkhotel Valkenburg, who the team said could not finish due to their injuries, while Gladys Verhulst (Le-Col Wahoo) also failed to make it to the end.
“For me it was a real suffer day, I didn’t make it through today so that is the end of my Tour,” said Australian champion Frain in an interview with broadcaster SBS (opens in new tab). “There were big time gaps … so it shows how hard the day actually was. The pace was on from the start.”
Then there were the riders who made it to the very end but to no avail. The already substantial challenge of making it within the time limit on such a climb heavy day was made even harder when the field was torn apart on the very first major ascent, the Petit Ballon. This is where Van Vleuten attacked, less than 50km into the racing, sending large swathes of riders off the back and shattering the field as the Movistar rider’s rivals scrambled to salvage their GC hopes.
Even the top climbers in the peloton, however, couldn’t help but shed chunks of time to Van Vleuten, who finished in 3:47:02. Only eight other riders on the stage managed to come over the line within ten minutes of the new race leader. That of course meant the pressure was on at the back of the field.
The last rider to make it within the cut was an exhausted Kim de Baat (Plantur-Pura), coming through to…
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