85 kilometres out, Haugset rolled the dice
Sigrid Ytterhus Haugset picked the boldest option on the road and it paid off completely. The Norwegian went solo on stage three of the Tour de France Femmes, breaking clear on the way from Geneva to Poligny and holding on for a win that reshapes her whole race.
She attacked with roughly 85 kilometres still to ride. The route was no gift either: close to 2,500 metres of climbing packed into 156.5 kilometres. Behind her, the peloton never found an answer.
Try it for $0.99.
Kopecky and Vos ran out of road
Lotte Kopecky threw everything at it. The Belgian clawed back to within about 10 seconds, then stalled. Second place. Marianne Vos took third to complete the podium.
This was the payoff for going early when everyone else waited. Haugset gambled from distance and made it stick, leaving the chasers hunting a shadow all the way to the line.
And the yellow jersey too
The stage win was not the whole story. Haugset also pulls on the yellow jersey as the new race leader, a rare double landed by someone well off most pre-race radars. The general classification looks very different heading into the next day.
Tuesday’s time trial will tell us whether she can hang onto it. Tonight, none of that matters. She had a near-perfect day.
Discover the rest of the Cycling news on our mathodds website and app!
in your pocket.
Real-time notifications & alerts
Leave a Reply