For a short while on the Col du Granier, the climactic climb of the antepenultimate stage of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, it felt like the race was at breaking point. The yellow jersey of Kim Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal) had been dropped, and was losing ground on the rest of the group of favourites. Fenix–Deceuninck were pushing on at the front with intent, and had the group of favourites reduced to just eight riders, and with gaps threatening to open up between them at any moment.
But by the end of the stage, virtually nothing had changed at the top of the general classification. The top six remain exactly the same, and the only changes in the top 10 see Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) climb a couple of places ahead of Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal) and Puck Pieterse (Fenix–Deceuninck), and the latter falling out of the top 10 after crashing on the descent. A group of favourites, including all the top six on GC minus Le Court, reached the top of the climb together, while Le Court and a handful of other dropped riders made their way back into that group on the technical 20km descent that took them from the top of the mountain to the finish at Chambéry.
This followed a pattern that has repeated throughout the race, of cagey racing among the overall contenders. There has been a reluctance among them to attack, epitomised by the stalemate of yesterday’s stage, where even the race’s first category one challenge of Col du Beal and other subsequent climbs was unable to draw those with their eye on the yellow jersey into a fight.
You might have thought Le Court’s GC rivals would want to press home the advantage they gained over her by dropping her on the Col du Granier. The Mauritian has looked dangerous throughout this race, packing more of a punch than the others, and accumulating enough time in bonus seconds to build a healthy lead of 26 seconds at the top of the overall classification. Yet after a brief acceleration from Demi Vollering and her FDJ-Suez teammate Juliette Labous at the start of the descent, they all wound up looking at each other, allowing Le Court to join them and not only save the jersey, but manage to lose no time at all.
There’s an obvious reason for this, and the same reason that appears to have shaped the way all of the GC contenders have approached this race — the spectre of the Col de la Madeleine. The mighty Alpine summit has loomed over this race from the start, the riders aware that the small gains on offer in these previous stages are likely to be minimal relative to the huge gaps that could open up in its fearsome slopes. While Le Court has been eager to hoover up as much time as possible via bonus seconds, others have been more conservative, instead wanting to preserve as much energy as possible before the Madeleine mountain top finish.
Their logic appears sound. If Le Court can lose 30 seconds on a climb like Col du Granier, surely she’ll be dumped well and truly out of contention on the substantially more difficult Madeleine? At 18.9km, it’s almost twice as long, and with a devastating average gradient of 8% that makes the Granier’s 5.3% look like mere child’s play. While Le Court remains hopeful that today was just a bad day, and isn’t ruling out clinging onto the jersey, it does feel unlikely that a rider not known as a pure climber will be able to hold on when the real mountain goats start attacking on the Madeleine.
One consequence of the cagey nature of the race so far is that we go into tomorrow's crucial queen stage without much of an idea of how strong the top contenders are relative to each other. In fact, as things stand, any one of the five riders who immediately trail Le Court in the overall standings has a genuine case of winning the yellow jersey.
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike) remains the closest rider to Le Court at 26 seconds, living up to the pre-race hype as a yellow jersey candidate. But as good as she’s looked on the punchy climbs, especially in nearly taking victory on the opening stage, the big question mark of how well she can handle the longer mountains remains unanswered.
The safer bets continue to be Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM-Zondacrypto) and Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez), well-placed at 30 and 31 seconds behind the yellow jersey, respectively, and who have both proved themselves at this level as winners of the previous two editions. Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) has been similarly efficient in limiting her losses, but will be conscious of how she struggled on the bigger mountains at the recent Giro d’Italia.
Even the less glamorous name of Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck) in sixth overall at 1:04 is riding like a genuine candidate, putting her domestique Yara Kastelijn to work at the front of the peloton on the Granier climb today to do the damage. And further down still, the fact that Sarah Gigante remains in touch at 1:14, and doesn’t have to worry about her Achilles' heel of descending on tomorrow’s mountain top finish means she remains a potent danger to everyone, and could take over leadership for AG Insurance-Soudal in the event that Le Court is indeed dropped.
There might not have been much edge-of-your-seat racing so far at this Tour, at least in terms of the GC race, but the race is thrillingly wide-open, with things beautifully set up for a classic at tomorrow’s long-anticipated Col de la Madeline showdown.
