Here’s a report!
Thank you for reading today, and see you tomorrow for more.
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Koch is rewarded for her breakaway efforts with third place in the points classification.
The profile of the remaining four stages is as follows: Hilly, Mountain, Hilly, Mountain, Mountain …
Mind you, to take tomorrow’s stage as an example, the intermediate sprint comes before all the categorised climbs (albeit 126.8km into the stage), so Wiebes and co may want to get busy.
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Points classification top 10
1) Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) 197pts
2) Vos (Visma-Lease A Bike) 157pts
3) Koch (Picnic PostNL) 70pts
4) Le Court Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal Team) 66pts
5) Vollering (FDJ-Suez) 59pts
6) Jansen (Volkerwessels Cycling Team) 54pts
7) Van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) 48pts
8) Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon/Sram) 47pts
9) Bossuyt (AG Insurance-Soudal Team) 39pts
10) Lippert (Movistar Team) 35pts
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“I nearly got boxed in and so I had to go a bit early,” says the stage winner Wiebes. “You don’t want to take the risk of getting box in.
“We’ll see how hard tomorrow is … hopefully, I can get some points again. I need to be in the breakaways [to stay in the green jersey.]”
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“Nice to get close – but Lorena was very fast,” says Marianne Vos of her second-place finish.
“It’s nice [to still be in the yellow jersey], we knew it would be chaotic, not only in the final … the whole stage was pretty tough, so thanks to the team.”
That was a classic sprint stage all round, really. The wind did cause a split in the bunch at one point, but they managed to get back in touch with the peloton, and that ensured it settled down again. It took a while for the breakaway to form but once we had three – and pretty quickly two – riders up the road, the sprinters teams were always going to lock it down before the end.
Top 10 GC after stage four
1) Vos (Team Visma-Lease A Bike) 11hr 13min 11sec
2) Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) +12sec
3) Le Court Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal) +12sec
4) Ferrand Prevot (Team Visma-Lease A Bike) +18sec
5) Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon/Sram Zondacrypto) +22sec
6) Vollering (FDJ-Suez) +25sec
7) Van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) +27sec
8) Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) +27sec
9) Fisher-Black (Lidl-Trek) +31sec
10) Dygert (Canyon/Sram Zondacrypto) +31sec
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Wiebes is up to second in GC as a result of that win.
“So far, it’s really rewarding to do this for Lorena,” says Anna van der Breggen, who produced a massive late turn in SD Worx-Protime’s textbook lead-out. “If it’s your moment, you need to do it. That pressure is kind of nice.
“You need to go fast. It’s difficult to know exactly when you go in front, when is the moment … when she [Wiebes] is there in the end, you know she will find a gap. Happy that we have Lorena, she is an amazing rider and I feel honoured to work for her.
“It’s hard [being back in the peloton], but at the same time, when you have a result like this it’s so rewarding. I like it, and sometimes I hate it.”
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Top 10 on stage four (all same time)
1) Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) 2hr 54min 11sec
2) Vos (Team Visma-Lease A Bike)
3) Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ)
4) Jansen (Volkerwessels)
5) Dygert (Canyon/Sram Zondacrypto)
6) Bossuyt (AG Insurance-Soudal)
7) Barbieri (Picnic-PostNL)
8) Zanetti (UnoX-Mobility)
9) González (St Michel Preference Home-Auber93)
10) Van Dam (Ceratzit Pro Cycling)
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Lorena Wiebes wins stage four
The race leader Vos is second behind the SD Worx-Protime rider, who wins a second consecutive stage. That was a textbook leadout and sprint. Vos tried to stay with Wiebes, but her rival had too much pace and power. Plenty of riders will be happy just to stay upright through a very technical final. Lara Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ) is third.
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300km to go: Wiebes attacks on the right!
500m to go: Canyon-SRAM moving up …
1km to go: Van der Breggen still riding on the front, a mammoth effort.
2km to go: Wiebes is fourth wheel on the front of the peloton. Poised to strike. Vos is third wheel, mind you, and may fancy an attack on the climb …
2.5km to go: Anna van der Breggen is riding on the front for SD-Worx, working for Wiebes.
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3km to go: Lorena Wiebes is well positioned towards the front. The peloton snakes around a big left-hander.
4km to go: The escapees are finally caught. Now the sprinters’ teams can take over.
5km to go: It’s 7sec for Magalhães and Koch. They haven’t given up, but they will be caught in the next kilometre or so, I think.
6km to go: Kristen Faulken (EF-Education-Oatly) has crashed on her own, it looks like she caught the kerb on the left-hand side of the road at the back of the bunch.
7.5km to go: Magalhães of Movistar is emptying the tank. She stands up and stamps on her pedals, leading Koch along an uphill drag. It’s a 13sec gap and the peloton has its prey easily in sight on a straight stretch of road.
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8km to go: Back down the road, near the solitary climb, there was a bit of moisture on the road but it looks fully dry now. That’s a blessing for this high-speed, highly technical finish.
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9.5km to go: The doomed escapees are not giving up. They have 14sec now.
10km to go: It’s 23sec for the breakaway and the peloton is now moving at full effort and full speed.
11km to go: The SD Worx-ProTime riders, as you’d expect, are visible at the front of the bunch, working for Wiebes.
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12km to go: The gap holds at around 40sec for these brave riders up front.
14km to go: Magalhães grimaces with effort as she does another turn on the front.
As Vos mentioned earlier, there is an uncategorised climb before the finish line, which may make things a bit more interesting in a few minutes. Also it’s a highly technical run-in to the finish line with plenty of roundabouts.
15km to go: Oh look, it’s the Eglise de Saint Georges les Baillargeaux. I’ll have to look up the history later.
It’s 41sec for the break.
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16km to go: As always, the breakaway riders’ efforts will not be in vain, if and when they are caught. A lovely bit of TV time for the sponsors. And as pointed out in coverage, too, it’s always good for riders to showcase themselves at the biggest bike race on the planet.
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17km to go: Vos is front and centre in the chasing peloton. Now the chase is really on, too, and the gap has fallen to 48sec.
18km to go: Lots of fans are roadside to applaud the breakaway riders. Back down the road, the work seems to be divided up among different teams, but there doesn’t appear to be a huge amount of organisation in the chase.
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20km to go: Still a minute for the break. There’s a crash back in the bunch. Nienke Vinke (Picnic PostNL) is one of the riders down. But no major harm done, it would seem, unless you count her white-jersey hopes. (Vinke is second behind British rider Imogen Wolff (Visma-Lease A Bike) in the best young rider standings.
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22km to go: Elise Chabbey (FDJ-Suez), in polkadots, is visible at the front of the peloton. Now Magalhães takes her turn at the front of the two-rider escape group, but Koch is soon back in control. She is doing the lion’s share of the work.
24km to go: The peloton heads over a bridge, across the A10 (autoroute Aquitane). Koch’s irrepressible ride at the front sees her stretch the gap to 1min 07sec. Fenix-Deceuninck are massed at the front of the bunch.
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25km to go: A minute for the break. Koch rides on strongly at the front.
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27km to go: A couple of riders are dropped off the back of the bunch as the pace picks up. Do the two breakaway riders have any hope of staying away and fighting for the win? I suppose there is a chance, but it’s a very small one with only two riders up front, who’ve already done a lot of work.
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29km to go: Magalhães takes two KOM points, Koch takes one atop the Côte de Marigny.
Koch waves to the fans at roadside, it looks like maybe it was someone she knows in the crowd.
The peloton follows behind, 55sec down on the break.
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30km to go: Now 900m of climbing for the breakaway riders. Magalhães gets out of the saddle and leads her breakaway companion up the climb. As the riders approach the woods at the top of the Côte de Marigny, there are lots of campervans and cars at the side of the road. Plenty of fans, too.
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31km to go: The peloton snakes through a chicane, right to left, and the pace seems to be picking up a bit as the kilometres tick by. Still it’s 1min 10 sec for the break.
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31.5km to go: The breakaway riders are nearing the solitary categorised climb of the day.
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33km to go: Thoughts on the race before the final? Mail me.
34km to go: Koch, at the front of the race, flicks an elbow asking for Magalhães to come through. But the Movistar rider stays put. She is probably suffering with the pace set by her breakaway companion.
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35km to go: Demi Vollering, hopefully, will be shaping up relatively well after yesterday’s crash. It’s possible that tomorrow will be the worst day in terms of dealing with the pain from her injuries. But it’s good that she’s still in the mix.
36km to go: It’s a minute for the break. A mixture of teams are fighting for space on the road at the front of the chasing peloton.
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39km to go: “It’ll be interesting to see if Lara Gillespie can mix it with the big hitters of Tour sprinting today,” emails Matthew. “UAE have been sitting on or near the front for the last 40km or so and she finished strongly in the second group yesterday which would suggest she feels good at the moment.”
40km to go: It’s 1min 05sec for the break.
There’s a category-four climb coming up, the Côte de Marigny, and Magalhães will presumably be permitted to take the honours by her breakaway companion.
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42km to go: Wiebes, in green, wins the sprint behind but it’s not much of a contest. Vos follows right on her wheel and grabs 15pts.
44km to go: Koch rolls through the sprint, clearly by prior agreement, and takes 25pts. Now here comes the main bunch.
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45km to go: Just a kilometre to go to the intermediate sprint for the leaders.
46km to go: With two riders in front, there will be 17pts available in the sprint behind, from the main peloton, at the intermediate. Koch and Magalhães ride on up front. I presume Koch will race for full points at the sprint point, which is a little over 2km away.
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50km to go: Koch and Magalhães are churning out some serious power up front. Their lead grows to 1min 44sec. The race is rolling through picturesque open farmland near Chinon, still in the Loire Valley.
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53km to go: It’s 1min 37sec for the two-rider breakaway. And about 8km until the intermediate sprint at Soudun.
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57km to go: In the virtual GC, Koch is now just a minute behind Vos. Mind you the GC is so congested she would only be 25th, according to my calculations.
Nice to see a Tour de France with a genuine GC battle, anyway.
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59km to go: Just 15km to race until the intermediate sprint. Rijnbeek, meanwhile, has been dropped by Koch and Magalhães, who are 1min 08sec in front of the bunch.
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60km to go: Overall the race has settled down with the break up the road and the average speed has fallen to 45.3km/h.
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61km to go: The previous excitement in the peloton, when a few GC riders were dropped for a while, has seen the gap to the break fall to 39sec.
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63km to go: The town of Richelieu, of course, was made famous by Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642). Have we got anything appropriate in the Guardian online archive? Well, sort of:
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64km to go: Happily for those 26 riders, they have managed to get back together with the peloton.
65km to go: There are 26 riders off the back. Cedrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) is the best placed on GC, 33sec down.
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66km to go: The break still has 1min 30 sec, but there is also a big split in the peloton, so the crosswind seems to have appeared right on schedule. This split could prove very costly for some of the GC contenders.
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68km to go: The peloton speeds through the town of Richelieu. Crosswinds are expected along the route, after a tailwind earlier in the day, so nervousness seems to have increased in the bunch again.
71km to go: Maud Rijnbeek (Volkerwessels Cycling Team), Franziska Koch (Picnic PostNL) and Tota Magalhães (Movistar Team) are the riders in the break. They now have 1min 36sec on the peloton, that contains 142 riders.
By the way, Rebecca Koerner of Uno-X Mobility was the latest rider to abandon, before today’s stage. That makes nine withdrawals in total.
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75km to go: The three-rider break now has 1min 20sec. All calm again back in the bunch.
79km to go: Rijnbeek’s lead has crept up again to 47sec and she is about to be joined by Koch and Magalhães. So we do have a three-rider breakaway after all.
Koch is a mere 2min 25sec down in GC, so you would have thought the favourites’ teams would have been happier with the previous three attackers.
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80.5km to go: Now Le Mouel is caught. The gap to Rijnbeek has fallen to 35sec.
If the three escapees had been able to join forces, it would have given them a chance of staying away, perhaps until closer to the end of the stage.
Now, it seems like the peloton has slowed yet again. Koch and Tota Magalhães (Movistar Team) have counterattacked and they are trying to bridge to our lone leader.
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81km to go: Le Mouel is still out front, between the peloton and Rijnbeek, but Roussel has been swept up by the peloton now.
82km: Although it seems the peloton has suddenly decided this gap needs to be reduced. There is an injection of pace at the front of the bunch and Rijnbeek’s advantage suddenly plunges to 46sec.
83km to go: Maud Rijnbeek has 1min 16sec on the peloton. This is a strong ride.
85km to go: “This Tour de France Femmes is getting bigger every year,” says Iris Slappendel on the TNT Sports motorbike, of the amount of fans that are lining the roads.
88km to go: The average speed has dropped a touch to 48.8km/h, perhaps as the peloton relaxes with a few riders who are no threat on GC having escaped.
Le Mouel is 6min 48sec down on Vos in GC, and Roussel is a whopping 26min 41sec behind.
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90km to go: Elyne Roussel (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber 93) is also chasing.
Rijnbeek has 1min 15sec on the peloton, then it’s Celia Le Mouel (25sec behind Rijnbeek), then Roussel (49sec behind).
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92km to go: Maud Rijnbeek (Volkerwessels Cycling Team) has managed to escape off the front. She is 44sec ahead of the peloton and 22sec ahead of one pursuer, Celia Le Mouel of Ceratizit Pro Cycling.
Rijnbeek is 12min 54sec down on GC so no threat there.
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96km to go: Franziska Koch (Picnic–PostNL) has repeatedly been trying to get away off the front of the peloton. But has been shut down at every turn. She is sixth in the points classification, with 45pts, and perhaps fancies she can force her way into contention for the green jersey.
Attacks have been rife since the start, with Franziska Koch in particular trying several times to get away on her own. 💨
— Le Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift (@LeTourFemmes) July 29, 2025
Les attaques fusent depuis le départ, avec notamment Franziska Koch qui a essayé de plusieurs fois de partir seule. 💥#TDFF2025 l #WatchTheFemmes l… pic.twitter.com/mkwAulS39L
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98km to go: The kilometres are ticking by quickly. It’s an average speed of 48.9km/h, a fast and furious day so far.
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On TNT Sports, Matt Stephens asks Marianne Vos: does today’s stage finish suit her? “It’s the Tour de France, so it’s going to be tough and hectic.
“It’s a nice finish, a little rise before we enter the line. It will be fast, it looks like a possible bunch sprint, but you never know what happens during the day.”
Does she feel the extra stress of the Tour? “Obviously there’s a bit of tension. It’s quite nervous in the bunch, especially in the final. Everybody wants to go for it, and I guess today will be the same.”
“I feel good. Happy to be in green,” says Lorena Wiebes, winner of yesterday’s stage. “I’m happy to try again today.”
“It will be the last sprint stage of the Tour, so hopefully I can make it a nice one.”
104km to go: Peloton still together.
“I’m happy because I’m quite OK,” says Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) after yesterday’s crash. “It could be so much worse. Today and I can start, so we’ll see during the stage.
“Yesterday the whole peloton was really stressed … it was a really fast stage and in the final it was really technical … it’s a lot of stress, everyone wants to win one stage, and every GC team wants to stay in the front, so it was quite dangerous."
“I really trust my teammates for the lead-out, it’s going to be good.”
“My sleep was good. I feel OK,” Vollering said before today’s stage after yesterday’s crash. “It was a hard impact … but the team did some good examinations, and it looks like I don’t have a concussion.
“When I was on the ground, I had some throwback of last year, but luckily this time I didn’t lose time. My team was there with me and I’m really grateful for that.”
110km to go: There are lots of attacks, lots of riders looking to get in the break. But they’ve all been shut down.
115km to go: The peloton, 145 in number, is all together.
The day’s intermediate sprint, at Soudun, comes with 44km to race.
We’ll see plenty of action there, no doubt, and the category-four climb of the Côte de Marigny comes with 29.1km remaining.
The climb is just 0.9km long with an average gradient of 5.4%.
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Stage 4 has begun
We’re racing on stage four. Live pictures yet to materialise, but it won’t be long …
Here’s a picture of stage three, featuring a classically beaten-up Citroën 2CV, while we’re waiting.
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Points classification: top five before stage four
1) Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) 130pts
2) Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) 112pts
3) Kim Le Court Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal) 55pts
4) Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) 53pts
5) Katarzyna Niewiadoma Phinney (Canyon/SRAM) 47pts
General classification: top 10 before stage 4
1) Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) 8hr 19min 6sec
2) Kim Le Court Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal) +6sec
3) Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike) +12sec
4) Katarzyna Niewiadoma Phinney (Canyon/SRAM) +16sec
5) Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) +16sec
6) Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) +19sec
7) Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) +21sec
8) Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) +21sec
9) Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck) +25sec
10) Niamh Fisher-Black (Lidl-Trek) +25sec
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Jeremy Whittle has also written about Dave Brailsford, Ineos/Sky and the questions that continue to hang over the troubled team:
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“It’s unfortunate,” the UAE Team ADQ director, Cherie Pridham, tells the reporter Matt Stephens of Elisa Longo Borghini’s withdrawal. “She battled through, of course. But riders’ health is more important than the competition … At the end of the day we’ve had a really good season. We came in very bold, hopeful for stages here, and that doesn’t stop.
“We have aspirations to continue to fight, and we will do that. Elisa will be back, we all know what she’s like, and we wish her well in her recovery. We start today with ambitions.”
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“Elisa Longo Borghini has stomach issues,” says TNT Sports pundit Dani Rowe of the UAE Team ADQ rider who has abandoned this morning. “Also, a few other teammates have been struggling with sickness overnight.
“The worry is if it’s going to spread to the rest of the team … they’ll do all they can to isolate the riders if they’re not feeling great.”
Jeremy Whittle’s stage three report is here:
Preamble
Demi Vollering of FDJ-Suez will start today’s stage 4 despite a heavy crash on the approach to Angers yesterday. The 2023 Tour de France Femmes champion thus avoids the fate of several other high-profile riders in the first three stages: Marlen Reusser (Movistar), Charlotte Kool (Picnic PostNL) and Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) are among eight riders in the peloton who have abandoned already.
“It’s not normal, the attitude of many teams and many riders. They’re disrespectful. We lose the respect in the last years in men’s and women’s cycling,” said Vollering’s team manager, Stephen Delcourt, after yesterday’s accident. The highly decorated Dutch rider will doubtless be riding through a lot of pain after a heavy impact on her back, knee and glutes yesterday.
The irrepressible Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease A Bike), meanwhile, retook the GC lead after yesterday’s stage, won by Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-ProTime). Vos is a mere 6sec ahead second-placed of Kim Le Court Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal) and 12 sec in front of her own Visma teammate, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, in third place overall. Those narrow gaps will mean plenty of nervousness among the GC teams with the potential for surprise attacks, especially if the wind blows.
Stage four, a 131km trip from Saumur to Poitiers, should be one for the sprinters but the presence of the category-four climb of Côte de Marigny might tempt a few potential escape artists to give it a go. That summit of that solitary categorised climb comes after 101.6km of racing – but the chances are we see a race well controlled by sprinters’ and GC teams alike.
Stage start: 1.45pm UK time / 2.45pm local time
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