Approaching the top of the final categorised climb on stage six of the Tour de France Femmes Puck Pieterse, wearing head-to-toe polka-dot kit alongside the markings from her crash the day prior, attacked. Behind her, Demi Vollering and yellow jersey Kasia Niewiadoma followed the 22-year-old closely as she claimed maximum points at the summit. Pieterse, who sat third on GC at the time, was keen to keep the move going, flicking an elbow and looking back at the other two who offered a few short pulls – but it would amount to nothing.
Moments later, the winning move was made by Cédrine Kerbaol. The Ceratizit-WNT rider moved up on the right-hand side of the bunch and launched over the top while the GC riders looked at one another. Despite Kerbaol sitting fourth on GC at the time at just 47 seconds back, it was the team of FDJ-Suez, in the interests of a stage win, who took up the lion’s share of the chasing on the approach to the finish in Morteau, rather than the team of Canyon//SRAM whose yellow jersey was under threat.
“That was a strange final because we were the only team riding in front,” said Léa Curinier of FDJ-Suez after the stage. “We really wanted to play for the victory and maybe the other teams didn’t so it’s a bit strange. I just asked Canyon to ride with me and that was only Neve Bradbury riding so we rode a bit together but not much but to be honest,” she added.
Her teammate, Évita Muzic, echoed her sentiments: “I don’t really understand why we are the only team to ride to win a stage but it’s like this,” she said.
For FDJ-Suez, their frustrations stemmed from the fact that they were invested in taking their first stage win of the race and propelling Muzic – sitting one minute and 21 seconds down – up the general classification. However Niewiadoma, Vollering and their single remaining teammates were more concerned with keeping a watchful eye on one another and conserving energy for the tough stages to come.
Neve Bradbury, the only remaining Canyon//SRAM rider in the group, shared turns with Curinier in an attempt to mitigate the gap to Kerbaol, who at one point came close to taking yellow. Meanwhile, Vollering was left with just Niamh Fisher-Black who had spent time off the front earlier in the race. While it may have been possible for Niewiadoma to attack Vollering and augment her GC lead while the former winner found herself in such an isolated position, the 29-year-old seemed content to let their GC battle play out in the upcoming mountain stages instead.
“We were not stressing too much as we had Neve that was pulling with FDJ,” said Niewiadoma. “I knew more teams would be engaged as the finish line got closer at the end. It all ended up well for us.”
Indeed, the yellow jersey seemed relaxed as she spoke to the media, confident in her climbing abilities for the days to come with Vollering facing a deficit of one minute and 19 seconds heading into the mountains despite the Dutch rider having a better track record on that terrain. If she is able to maintain her lead in the mountains then holding back on today’s stage was the right thing to do. If Vollering manages to distance her, however, then the Polish rider may rue missed opportunity to gain more time on her rival.
“I think today I felt the whole peloton focusing on the last two stages as they are the most crucial and hardest,” Niewiadoma said. “Today was more of a breakaway day. When we were getting into the final with climbs at the end and Puck was going for mountain points there was some testing between us. Puck and Demi broke away with me but none of us committed to put the hammer down.”
For FDJ’s part, their focus remains on Muzic’s GC campaign with the former French champion just behind Vollering at one minute and 21 seconds. “All is possible. The Tour is not finished,” said Curinier. “Evita has the legs to play in the GC so let’s see what can happen.”
