Marlen Reusser powers to stage 4 time trial victory at Tour de France Femmes, takes yellow

Marlen Reusser powered to time trial victory on stage four of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift in Dijon on Tuesday, and moved into the yellow jersey.

The Movistar rider, time trial world champion, was the overwhelming favourite for the race against the clock, but she only pipped Lieke Nooijen (Visma-Lease a Bike) by four seconds. Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) finished third, 17 seconds behind Reusser, with Britain's Zoe Bäckstedt (Canyon-SRAM) in fourth, two seconds further back.

Reusser averaged 45.793kph over the 21km course, and led at the first checkpoint by 19 seconds, which narrowed to the finish. It's the 34-year-old's third Tour stage win, two of which have been time trials.

On a blazing day in Burgundy, there was a lot of movement on general classification. The race leader after stage three, Sigrid Haugset (Uno-X Mobility), was replaced by Reusser after losing X to the winner, while Reusser's GC rivals Vollering, Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L'IMAD) all lost varying amounts of time.

Vollering was the best-of-the-rest in terms of those vying for yellow, losing just 17 seconds to Reusser, meaning she is just 14 seconds behind, in second. Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) is up to third overall, 54 seconds behind Reusser, after she finished seventh on Tuesday.

Longo Borghini is now fifth overall, her run-in hampered by a bike change, just ahead of Niewiadoma, who lost just 1:08 to Reusser in an event which is not thought to be her speciality. The biggest GC loser was defending champion Ferrand-Prévot, who lost 2:12 to Reusser, and now sits in 14th overall.

"I’m super super happy," Reusser said in her TV interview. "This was the idea that we had for a long time. It’s the first Tour de France that I saw as my goal for the year, I really targeted it. I am here as a leader, and I knew it was going to start in Switzerland, on Swiss national day, and we would have a TT on the fourth day, so it was our project Dijon. The yellow of the mustard.

"It was our project Dijon, and it worked out. It’s always so hard, and you know it’s not necessarily going to happen, but that it happened like this, I’m super happy."

More to follow...