It was first and second for France, as Maeva Squiban (UAE-ADQ) thundered to victory in the sixth stage of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift in a race dominated by the young French rider. Juliette Labous (FDJ-Suez) came in over a minute behind her compatriot, with Kimberley Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal) coming in third.
Squiban took hold of the race on the Col du Chansert, as she took the lead from Elise Chabbey (FDJ-Suez) in the polka dot jersey, holding a steady lead of over a minute in the final half of the race, despite being only one of four UAE-ADQ riders in today’s stage. The dominance of the rider from Brittany was on full display as race-favourites battled it out behind, on the hardest stage of the Tour so far.
Le Court maintains her lead on the race, and will wear the yellow jersey on tomorrow’s stage, sitting at 26 seconds ahead of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot.
"It's a dream," Squiban said after the race.
"It's an amazing feeling. I didn't expect to do that. I knew we had a strong team, we are only four [riders] now but we were all really strong and we knew we were able to do something big today and we did it so it's a special day for us."
How it happened:
Stage six was set to be the hardest of the Tour so far, with five categorised climbs dominating the course, the first of which came at 37km into the race, the Côte de Courpière (1.7km at 6.8%).
At the start of the race, riders quickly battled to get out of the peloton, with Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) in green making an early break, soon joined by current Queen of the Mountains, Elise Chabbey of FDJ-Suez.
Asserting herself as temporary race-lead, Chabbey took the early intermediate sprint taking the maximum 25 points before being subsumed by the pursuing bunch of 20 riders.
Only four kilometres on from the sprint, the breakaway riders began their first climb of the race, the category 3 Côte de Courpière, 40 seconds away from the peloton. Led by Chabbey, with Human Powered Health’s Lily Williams and Movistar’s Liane Lippert representing three of the mix-up of 14 teams appearing in this 20-strong breakaway.
The break, however, dropped to 12 riders after the second climb of the day, with Brodie Chapman (UAE-ADQ) collecting the maximum points, with Chabbey picking up an additional two points on Côte d’Augerolles (2.7km at 5.1%).
The third climb took Wiebes victim, as the sprinter temporarily dropped from the peloton on the lead up to the 10.3km climb, Col du Beal. At the opposite end of the race, the peloton pushed ahead with an advantage of over a minute.
Wiebes battled to stay in the peloton as she, and other riders including FDJ-Suez’s Ally Woolaston were repeatedly dropped.
Even before the riders had hit the categorised climb, they had been riding an incline of 5% over about 20 kilometres, meaning that the race had arranged and rearranged even before they hit Col du Beal. Once on the climb though, riders start to flag, with Millie Couzens (Fenix-Deceunick) and SD Worx-Protime’s Blanka Vas clinging on to the back of the yellow jersey group, separated from the peloton by just 35 seconds.
Pushing towards the top of the mountain, FDJ-Suez looked to make a bid for the upcoming points, with Amber Kraak attacking at the front of the breakaway. However, her charge was unsuccessful, and the rider looked to pay for this early attempt at 47.9km to go as the peloton caught her, along with Lidl-Trek’s Lauretta Hanson.
The Queen of the Mountains points were scored by Silke Smulders (Liv AlUla Jayco), picking up 10 points against the polka-dot jersey. Though on the descent, Chabbey was back at the head of the race, in a small three-rider breakaway alongside Smulders and Usoa Ostolaza (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi), though only separated by eight seconds by a chase group. The rest of the race spilled out close behind, with a strung-out peloton only thirty seconds behind.
The trio’s tentative lead was quickly closed as the peloton caught up with the break, suppressing Chabbey’s solo attack as they did so.
Then, on the fourth climb of the day, the French rider, Maeve Squiban (UAE-ADQ) made a successful attack, leading out the race and picking up the five points available at the top of Col du Chansert, with a lead of 1:10, with 29km left to race.
On the descent, Niamh Fisher-Black (Lidl-Trek) was hit with a gearing issue, unable to push down the mountain with the peloton. Squiban, however, maintained her lead at the front of the race with an ever-strengthening lead of 1:20. Behind her, in the fight for bonus points, Kim Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal) crossed the line just ahead of Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney of Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto.
It was Squiban’s race to win, from there-on out, the Breton rider holding a consistent lead from the group in pursuit to allow the young rider to enjoy her hard-won victory.
Results
Tour de France Femmes 2025, stage six: Clermont-Ferrand > Ambert (123.7km)
1. Maeva Squiban (Fra) UAE Team ADQ, in 3:20:46
2. Juliette Labous (Fra) FDJ-Suez, +1:09
3. Kim Le Court (Mau) AG Insurance-Soudal, +1:13
4. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ-Suez,
5. Dominika Włodarczyk (Pol) UAE Team ADQ
6. Margot Vanpachtenbeke (Bel) VolkerWessels CT
7. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Fra) Visma-Lease a Bike
8. Magdeleine Vallieres (Can) EF Education-Oatly
9. Pauliena Rooijakkers (Ned) Fenix-Deceuninck
10. Puck Pieterse (Ned) Fenix-Deceuninck, all at same time
General classification after stage six
1. Kim Le Court (Mau) AG Insurance-Soudal, in 18:29:05
2. Pauline Ferrand-Prevot (Fra) Visma-Lease a Bike, +26s
3. Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Pol) Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto, +30s
4. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ-SUEZ, + 31s
5. Anna van der Breggen (Ned) SD Worx-Protime, +35s
6. Pauliena Rooijakkers (Ned) Fenix-Deceuninck, +53s
7. Sarah Gigante (Aus) AG Insurance-Soudal, +1:03s
8. Puck Pieterse (Ned) Fenix-Deceuninck, +1:12
9. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly, +1:24
10. Evita Muzic (Fra) FDJ-Suez, at same time
