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It’s been an intriguing start to the third edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. We’ve had the race’s first-ever foreign start, we’ve had a rare double-stage day, and the first three stages all probably didn’t pan out the way we expected.
With all of those stages happening in and around the Dutch city of Rotterdam, the riders have enjoyed massive crowds in one of the world’s most cycling-mad countries. They’ve also had to deal with the abundance of road furniture that adds a layer of complexity to racing in this part of the world. Oh, and the cherry on top of the Tour’s Dutch Grand Départ? Dutch riders have won all three stages so far*.
Now, as the race heads to the south of the Netherlands and into Belgium, let’s take a look back at the Rotterdam Grand Départ, through the lenses of our wonderful photographers: Kristof Ramon and Ashley and Jered Gruber.
(*Fun fact: Of the 19 stages in the history of the Tour de France Femmes so far, 12 have been won by Dutch riders.)
Stage 1 began in the shadows (reflections?) of Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum.Reflections everywhere you look.SD Worx-Protime, the Dutch team of defending champ Demi Vollering (third from left), is presented to the crowd in Rotterdam. Note the more-orange-than-usual kit for this Dutch-flavoured TDFF.There she is: last year’s winner and the near-unbackable favourite for this year’s race.Visma-Lease a Bike also opted for a more-orange colour scheme for the Dutch Départ.Rotterdam locals have come out in huge numbers to support the race.Many riders spoke about having never raced in front of such big crowds.Quintessentially Dutch.The climb out of the Maasdeltatunnel was the only classified climb of the opening stage, with Cristina Tonetti (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi) taking the two QOM points at the top from a solo move.The stage ended in The Hague with the predicted bunch sprint. What wasn’t predicted was that stage favourite Lorena Wiebes would have a late mechanical …… as her biggest rival Charlotte Kool dashed to an easy stage victory.Kool has had a frustrating run so far this year so this win meant a hell of a lot.It was a hot one to start the race.Yellow for Kool going into stage 2 …… where she attracted plenty of attention, as you’d expect. The question was: could Kool win the super-short stage 2 as well …… or would Wiebes bounce back from her mechanical to take the stage win.Vos was wearing green at the start of stage 2 in lieu of classification leader Kool (who had another jersey to wear). You might recall that Vos won green in the inaugural Tour de France Femmes in 2022. She’s a good bet to do so again this week.Stage 2 started in Dordrecht and spanned just 69.7 km back to Rotterdam. Why so short? To make time for a short ITT later that afternoon.More massive crowds greeted the riders.The first couple days of the race have seen plenty of crashes.Exhibit B.Again: those crowds. Very tidy work here from the Grubers.There was no mechanical for Wiebes at the finish of stage 2, meaning we got to see the Wiebes vs Kool battle we’d been hoping for.Wiebes hit the front first, with Kool waiting until late to make her move …… but when she did, she was simply too strong for her fellow Dutchwoman. As Escape’s own Abby Mickey wrote, the battle between Wiebes and Kool is on.It was another warm one on stage 2.Aussie champ Ruby Roseman-Gannon was one of several riders to crash on stage 2. She looked concerned about an injury to her knee after the stage and fair enough: a deep wound to her knee earlier in the season proved very troublesome. Thankfully she was able to continue the race that afternoon in the ITT.The gap of several hours between stages 2 and 3 gave riders a chance to cool off, recover, and even have a nap before suiting up for the ITT.British ITT champ (and Olympic silver medalist in the ITT) Anna Henderson gets ready for the 6.3 km time trial.Tonetti continues to lead the QOM classification. That might well change on stage 4 though; a day with no fewer than eight(!) classified climbs on the menu.World ITT champ Chloe Dygert was among the favourites for stage 3. She ended up second on the day.Olympic champion Grace Brown had said pre-stage that the ITT was too short for her. A mechanical on the day didn’t help either, the Aussie finishing in 30th.Vos in green on her way to 17th.Olympic road race champ Kristen Faulkner looked like she was doing it easily at times. She was fifth in the end. Expect to see her come to the fore in the coming days.She didn’t expect to win the stage, and yet that’s exactly what Demi Vollering did, putting five seconds into Dygert and a couple other riders.Charlotte Kool dropped 25 seconds, enough to see her slip to fifth on GC. It was an emotional Vollering that took to the podium after her stage win …… being presented with the maillot jaune a few days earlier than even she expected. The question now: can anyone take it off her?
