Tuesday at the Tour de France Femmes offered up a rare double stage with a short sprinter’s stage in the morning and a short, almost prologue-length time trial in the afternoon. Dutch crowds in Rotterdam got to see Dutch Charlotte Kool win the flat morning stage in yellow. In the afternoon, another Dutch rider, the reigning champion Demi Vollering, put on a chrono display that suggests she’s going to run through this edition like a hot knife through butter. Vollering leads teammate Lorena Wiebes by three seconds. Olivia Baril was top Canadian in 31st.
Road Stage
The first part of the day was a pretty straight forward 67.9-km route back into Rotterdam from Dordrecht.
🚲 Stage 2 / Étape 2 🚲
🚩 @GemDordrecht
🏁 @rotterdam
📏 69,7 km
⏰ 9:50 CEST > 11:40 CEST#TDFF2024 pic.twitter.com/Rine74L2gz— Le Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift (@LeTourFemmes) August 13, 2024
On Monday’s opener, SD Worx-Protime’s Lorena Wiebes had a mechanical that took her out of the sprint, but on Tuesday she was determined to make her mark.
Kool was seemingly too far back with 600 meters to go to be in a good position. But she surfed teammate Rachale Barbieri to where green jersey Marianne Vos was leading out Wiebes. Wiebes went very early, but Kool came around Vos and then passed Wiebes for the win and the Dutch one-two-three. Kool took a four-second lead over Anniina Ahtosalo and turned it into a 14-second gap over Ahtosalo and Wiebes.
Olivia Baril had been the top Canadian on Monday in 15th; Maggie Coles-Lyster, fresh from the Olympic Games track, was eighth on Tuesday. Simone Boilard was top Canadian on GC at 20th, +0:20.
Time Trial
The chrono was a 6.3 jaunt through Rotterdam. The intermediate time check at Kilometre 3.9. The riders had three hours to recover and change kits and bikes.
🚲 Stage 3 / Étape 3 🚲⠀
🚩 @rotterdam
🏁 @rotterdam
📏6,3 km
⏰ 15:10 CEST > 17:50 CEST#TDFF2024 | #WatchTheFemmes | @TISSOT | @GoZwift pic.twitter.com/1blGZTcXE8— Le Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift (@LeTourFemmes) August 13, 2024
Coles-Lyster, who had crashed on Monday and docked 20 seconds for drafting, giving her last place on GC by a mile, started first. Her time was 8:03.
Olympic gold medalist Grace Brown was on a good ride until she suffered a puncture.
Loes Adegeest was on the hot seat for a long time with 7:30. But the American…
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