Tour de France Femmes

Marianne Vos survives the gravel and climbs to remain in the lead.

But we'll be back with another live report tomorrow to see if we have the second full bunch sprint of the 2022 race, or maybe another outcome. No change in the yellow jersey of course, while Vos also continues to rack up points to buttress her corresponding top spot in the points ranking. We tried to stay in the right positions. Riders, it should be said, are continuing to cross the line in dribs and drabs. The team had the plan to make a hard race and to not let it come down to an easy final so we just said that we'd attack and one would go and and I was lucky that it was me. Very luckily, she doesn't appear to be too badly hurt, and she's able to get up and get racing again. Puncture for Niewiadoma, third overall, but she gets back on to a second group, around 15 seconds down on the leaders. More significantly, Lorena Wiebes (DSM) picked up fourth, allowing her to close in a little on green jersey leader Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma). The riders are just about to enter the Forest D'Orient Natural Park, and the route heads round what looks on a map to be like three sides of a square, taking the riders round a large lake in the centre before heading out again after roughly some 40 kilometres. But there are plenty of changes of direction still come and for the last 20 kilometres, it'll probably be a headwind. And a fairly gentle breeze of around 7-10 kmh, from the north-west -Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma) led the main pack home for fifth, and remained in the lead for a third straight day.

The longest stage of the week happens after a hard day of gravel, and it will be a flat and fast one.

As the race passes the halfway mark, gaps have opened up in the overall standings, which will make a flat, fast stage more interesting as time matters and certainly, attacks will be launching throughout the day. Stream it on the Peacock App starting at 8:15AM EST or watch the replay later. The race will begin at 5:45AM EST and take roughly 6.5 hours to complete.

Rousse, a former French National Road Race champion and Lotto-Soudal racer, has always been keen to see a development in women's professional cycle racing.

So the best reply I can give to people who are stuck on the fact that a woman shouldn’t be on a bike, or in cycling, I don’t have anything to say to them, and it is through my work – be it the Tour de France Femmes or other activities – that we deserve our presence. By staging and televising the Tour de France Femmes with Zwift we are showing that it is possible to do bike racing, and it is perfectly normal to see women’s cycle racing on TV. I’ve always been keen to move up the ladder, but I also think that if I move up it was because I have worked and proven myself. MR: Well, I am comfortable in the jobs I have done, and I just get on with my work without thinking whether I am a man or a woman. It’s true that the stage to Bar-sur-Aube is exceptional for a Tour de France race, having the appearance of a Classics race in July! In fact, that there has never been such a long stretch of unmade road included in the men’s Tour de France. Amaury Sports Organisation is treating it in exactly the same way as they do with the men’s Tour de France. This is the best thing that can happen for women’s sport. I did different little jobs, including podium girl, then I got the opportunity to be a commentator for a few cycle races on TV. Initially I tried to do both commentating and racing, but I found it hard to juggle both, so I began to reconsider my future given that at the time I already had a 20-year career in cycle racing and thousands of kilometres in my legs. So my experience in organising the Tour de la Provence helped me in quickly assimilating into the role as Tour de France Femmes director. They needed to really want to do it, and I hope that young girls can watch this race and be inspired to become a cycle racer. Cycling has brought me so much, so if I can bring something to cycling in my role, I will do it with my heart. But it’s sure I would have still been on the start line to do it if I had the chance – which is how a lot of cyclists feel about it. When I was six I had enough of cheering from the sidelines so I announced to him that I wanted to get into cycling.

We continue our daily recap of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift with another collection of brilliant images by Zac Williams.

It was hard but it was not as hard as other stages for me.” The race director of the TDFF, Marion Rousse, wanted diversity in the stages for the inaugural edition. The GC favourites marked each other and Team SD Worx enacted a plan that would pay off with a fine victory by Marlen Reusser.

Adam Blythe is already declaring it an "awful" stage for the peloton with unpaved roads and potential crosswinds in store.

An inclinometer feature will be introduced, a 3D representation bringing to life the gradients faced by the peloton. The last section, only with 20km to go, is right at the top of a climb so it is going to be awful. Still, it will be hard-pressed to match thethrilling finale to Stage 3- and Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig's post-race interview...