BELLEVILLE-EN-BEAUJOLAIS, France (AP) — Demi Vollering crowned a battling performance by winning the fifth stage of the Women’s Tour de France on Wednesday while Marlen Reusser kept pace to keep the yellow jersey.
Vollering, the 2023 Tour champion, attacked on both of the last two categorized climbs and she kept enough in reserve to beat Reusser and Poland’s Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney in a three-way dash for the line.
The Dutch rider won her first stage of this Tour and stayed in contention for the general classification.
Swiss rider Reusser, the world time trial champion who seized the yellow jersey the day before, still leads by 12 seconds from Vollering, with Niewiadoma-Phinney third, 1 minute and 17 seconds behind.
Challenging course
Wednesday’s stage was a challenging 140-kilometer (87-mile) trek up and down between Mâcon and the finish in Belleville-en-Beaujolais.
The climbs took their toll with Marianne Vos among the dropped riders early on.
Puck Pieterse was first over the first four climbs and secured the polka dot jersey for the “Queen of the Mountains” when she crested the category 3 Col de Fontmartin. It gave the Dutch rider a 16-point lead over Nikola Nosková with just 15 left to win.
Lorena Wiebes, who won the Tour’s first two stages, was dropped going up the Col de Fontmartin, but she won the intermediate sprint to fasten her hold on the green jersey for points.
A 19-woman breakaway tackled the category 2 Col de Gerbet, where they faced 4.6 kilometers at an average gradient of 6.5%, eking out an advantage of nearly 1½ minutes over the peloton featuring Reusser and Vollering.
Pieterse was also first to the top, stretching her lead in the mountains classification to 23 points.
With 50 kilometers to go, the leading riders had stretched their advantage to around 1 minute, 50 seconds, but it was down to 1:20 some 15 kilometers later and it continued to shrink as they ascended the Col de Durbize, the penultimate climb of the day.
Swiss rider Noemi Rüegg veered into the path of a passing service motorbike and was clipped, sending her crashing to the road.
Vollering takes over
Vollering attacked 700 meters from the summit of the the Col de Durbize, followed by Bella Holmgren, Niewiadoma-Phinney and Reusser, while defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot was unable to keep up. They joined the leaders with 22 kilometers to go.
Vollering attacked again on Mont Brouilly, with just Reusser and Niewiadoma-Phinney still with her by the summit. They had a sizable advantage over their rivals going into the last five kilometers.
Niewiadoma-Phinney attacked with 320 meters remaining when Reusser and Vollering appeared surprised to see the Polish rider speed off, but they both recovered and Vollering just pulled ahead of her rivals at the finish.
This edition of the race, the fifth of the Women’s Tour, covers 1,175 kilometers (730 miles) over nine days.
Stage six is another demanding mid-mountain stage ending in Tournon-sur-Rhône before Friday’s anticipated mountaintop finish on Mont Ventoux.
