Lorena Wiebes (Team DSM) won the opening stage of the Tour de France Femmes, sprinting her way into the yellow jersey.
With Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma) starting her sprint early, Wiebes was forced to counter, eventually coming over the top in the closing metres taking the win a bike length ahead of her Dutch compatriot. Lotte Kopecky (SDWorx) was third.
It was another patient performance from Team DSM who were nowhere to be seen as the front of the race passed under the one kilometre marker. But as the race rounded the final right hand bend the team positioned their rider perfectly.
Vos’ Jumbo-Visma team mate, Anna Henderson was her final lead out, while Wiebes waited slightly further back, out of the wind. Then, as Henderson began to wane Wiebes was able to react the moment Vos started her sprint.
The win came at the end of a chaotic stage 81.7km stage. The opening day of such a hyped and significant race, held in what can only be described as an iconic location, was never likely to be uneventful, and the day was an entertaining one of repeated attacks and small breakaways.
Monday’s second stage between Meaux and Provins is another flat one, and could well be another bunch kick, though a kick up to the line may bring a different outcome to Sunday’s opening day.
How it happened
After a long wait a Tour de France for women was finally back. While there were earlier attempts at a women’s Tour, organisers of the men’s race ran an event for women between 1984 and ’89. When that disappeared other organisations tried to carry the race on, but it finally ran out of steam in 2009.
In 2014 ASO gave the world some hope with the one day La Course by Le Tour de France, which itself graduated from criterium race around the Paris circuit the men grace on stage 21, to other dates and parts of France.
But now a genuine Tour de France for women is back, though it’s only eight stages and doesn’t tour round France, remaining in the north-east. And we were back in Paris for stage one, a race difficult to differentiate from the first three editions of La Course.
Though the stage started at the Eiffel Tower, as opposed to Place de la Concorde where La Course used to, the opening leg was neutralised, the race only starting on the finish line on the Champs Elysées and riding 11 laps of the central Paris circuit, making for a total of 81.6km, as opposed to to 89km in 2014.
That did not make the race any less significant though, with any rider or team with a…