Marianne Vos was the strongest in the final uphill sprint to take the first yellow jersey of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
It looked as though Visma-Lease a Bike would win the stage through Frenchwoman Pauline Ferrand Prévot, who launched a brutal acceleration in the final 800 metres on the Côte de Cadoudal. However, her move was brilliantly chased down by AG Insurance-Soudal's Kim Le Court-Pienaar with Vos on the wheel.
The three-time world road race champion managed to overhaul the Mauritian in the final few metres to take the race's first maillot jaune and her first Tour stage since 2022, with Le Court-Pienaar second and Ferrand Prévot in third.
Visma-Lease a Bike played the nervy opening stage to perfection and bossed the final 5km as they looked to position Vos and Ferrand-Prévot for the final 1.8km climb. They clearly had a plan as the Frenchwoman, returning to the road this year, launched her move.
Vos was quick to praise her team-mates in the winner's TV interview after the stage.
"It was short, so we knew it was going to be nervous. Sometimes just spread out, but still you felt the tension in the bunch. We wanted to do a lead-out as a team before the final descent, before the corner, to put Pauline and me in a good position, and the girls did such an amazing job," Vos said.
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"Then Pauline took a gap, and she had actually a really good gap. At that moment of course I looked around at who was coming. Then I saw Kim Le Court coming and she really had a good sprint, so I went with her."
"I didn't know if Pauline was still hanging in for the finish, but in the end I saw her dropping the speed, so it was a sprint with Kim. And then we just catch Pauline, which is of course a bit of a double-feeling. But I'm so happy with the team effort and we could make it."
It's the second time in Vos' storied career that she will wear the leaders' yellow jersey at the Tour de France Femmes, after holding the lead for five days during the 2022 edition.
Even after more than 250 career victories, Vos described her win in Plumulec as "special."
"It's the Tour de France, it's the first day. You can't really describe what it means. And as a bonus to take the yellow jersey, I couldn't even think about that up front."
"So I'm really thankful for the team and especially to Pauline here on the final part," she concluded.
Demi Vollering sits alongside Puck Pieterse in the peloton
(Image credit: Getty Images)
how it happened
It would be a fiery, short stage to open up the 2025 Tour de France Femmes starting in Vannes, with just 78.8km on the menu for the riders.
Several riders crashed even before the racing even got underway. Juliette Labous (FDJ-suez) and Aude Biannic (Movistar) were among those who came down in the neutral zone but all were able to continue.
Italian Laura Tomasi (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi) was the first to make a significant move off the front in the opening stages. She was soon joined by Maud Rijnbeek of VolkerWessels as FDJ-suez controlled the peloton with a view to keeping leader Demi Vollering safe through the winding roads of Brittany.
The pair could only build a lead of 30 seconds as the top teams jostled for position. Ahead of the first classified climb of the race, Rijnbeek distanced Tomasi to lead solo and take two mountain classification points. Both were consumed by the bunch shortly after with more than half the stage still to ride.
A stalemate ensued over the following rolling kilometres, with the main challenge of the day coming up as the riders took on a final circuit three times which included the Côte de Cadoudal (1.8km 6%), which would also be the finale of the stage.
The technical, narrow roads and a bustling and nervous peloton led to several crashes during the stage. The likes of Liane Lippert (Movistar), Mavi Garcia and Ruby Roseman-Gannon (Liv-Jayco-AlUla) were among those who touched the tarmac. Lippert and Garcia, both riders with GC ambitions, were distanced as the challenging closing laps began and would lose significant time. Movistar’s Marlen Reusser, one of the big contenders for the yellow jersey, had to retire from the race due to the impact of a recent illness.
The peloton took on the first ascent of the climb at pace as domestiques focused on positioning their leaders well. Wiebes went over the line first to take maximum points in the intermediate sprint. Franziska Koch (Picnic-PostNL) accelerated over the top of the European champion to signal the beginning of an attacking final third of the stage, but was quickly closed down. Eline Jansen (VolkerWessels), Dominika Włodarczyk (UAE Team-ADQ) and Francesca Barale (Picnic-PostNL) laid down speculative efforts shortly after. However, the big teams were desperate to control things and wouldn’t let anything go.
The second ascent of the climb was classified for the mountains jersey and it was Elise Chabbey who won the sprint to the top, meaning that the FDJ-suez rider would wear the polka dots on stage 2.
More attacks were quashed in the run-in before Visma-Lease a Bike took control of the lead-out in the finale with Vos well positioned on the wheel of Lidl-Trek’s former world champion Elisa Balsamo. Pauline Ferrand-Prevot attacked with 800 metres to go on the steepest section of the climb and built a large gap.
Kim le Court-Pienaar accelerated hard from the back of the group to close the deficit but had Vos on her wheel. The pair made it to Ferrand-Prévot with just metres to spare and the Dutchwoman came around to take the win. Vos will wear yellow as the peloton rolls out of Brest tomorrow.
Results
Tour de France stage 1, Vannes-Plumulec (78.8km)
1. Marianne Vos (Ned) Visma-Lease a Bike in 01:53:03 2. Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mau) AG Insurance-Soudal 3. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Fra) Visma-Lease a Bike 4. Kasia Niewiadoma (Pol) Canyon-SRAM-zondacrypto, all same time 5. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ-suez, +3s 6. Puck Pieterse (Ned) Fenix-Deceuninck, +5s 7. Anna van der Breggan (Ned) SD Worx-ProTime, same time 8. Eline Jansen (Ned) VolkerWessels, +9s 9. Pauliena Rooijakkers (Ned), Fenix-Deceuninck 10. Pfeiffer Georgi (GBr) Picnic-PostNL, all same time
General Classification after stage 1
1. Marianne Vos (Ned) Visma-Lease a Bike in 01:52:53 2. Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mau) AG Insurance-Soudal, +4s 3. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Fra) Visma-Lease a Bike, +6s 4. Kasia Niewiadoma (Pol) Canyon-SRAM-zondacrypto, +10s 5. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ-suez, +13s 6. Puck Pieterse (Ned) Fenix-Deceuninck, +15s 7. Anna van der Breggan (Ned) SD Worx-ProTime, same time 8. Eline Jansen (Ned) VolkerWessels, +19s 9. Pauliena Rooijakkers (Ned), Fenix-Deceuninck 10. Pfeiffer Georgi (GBr) Picnic-PostNL, all same time
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Dan Challis is a freelance journalist based in the Scottish Borders. As well as writing for Cycling Weekly and CyclingNews, Dan also writes a weekly newsletter called Global Peloton.
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