Tour de France Femmes: Charlotte Kool wins stage 1 sprint in The Hague and takes first yellow jersey

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Charlotte Kool (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) won stage 1 of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes in a mass sprint ahead of Anniina Ahtosalo (Uno-X Mobility) and Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek).

Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) was piloted perfectly in the final kilometre but appeared to drop her chain after contact with Ahtosalo, as her teammate Barbara Guarischi started the final leadout.

When Guarischi looked around, it was Kool who came out of her slipstream to take the lead and hold off the challenge from Ahtosalo, Balsamo, Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike), and Lotta Henttala (EF-Oatly-Cannondale).

“It’s unbelievable, it’s a dream coming true. It was not an easy season, but this is what it was all about," Kool said after her first Tour stage victory.

"I want to thank so many people, my coach who always kept believing in me, all my people around me, this is unbelievable.

“It was a really hectic final, but I like that. I went so early and thought, ‘oh, it’s too long’, and it hurt so bad, but it was enough in the end.

"I think this is the best day of my life. Everything comes together, and that’s really special,” Kool continued, also taking the yellow jersey in her home country."

How it unfolded

After the sign-in and neutral start in the Rotterdam city centre, the peloton faced a 14km neutral zone to the real start that doubled as a sightseeing tour of the city.

A first crash happened in the neutral zone, and Natalie Grinczer (Roland) was one of the riders involved in her comeback race after crashing out of the Vuelta Femenina in May. Grinczer struggled at the back of the peloton for most of the stage and eventually had to abandon, as did four riders of the Tashkent City Women team.

Laboral Kutxa were the most active team early in the stage, initiating the first breakaway that also included riders from Canyon-SRAM and AG Insurance-Soudal, though they were caught after only five kilometres.

The Basque team again sent a rider off the front with 80 km to go and Cristina Tonetti who quickly gained a 40-second lead.

When Giorgia Vettorello (Roland) jumped from the peloton to chase Tonetti down, she was shadowed by Yurani Blanco who didn’t take turns, protecting her teammate’s position at the front.

Vettorello and Blanco were soon caught again, and on the Calandbrug, a crash close to the front of the peloton took down about a dozen riders including Olympic time trial champion Grace Brown (FDJ-Suez) and Lizzie Deignan (Lidl-Trek) whose teammate Gaia Realini suffered a mechanical just after the bridge.

Tonetti kept going and won the only mountain sprint of the day as she climbed out of the brand-new Maasdeltatunnel, taking the polka-dot jersey that she will wear until at least stage 4 as there are no mountain points on offer on Tuesday’s stages 2 and 3.

Her objective accomplished, Tonetti dropped back to the peloton, and the crashed riders eventually made it back too.

There were no attacks for the remainder of the stage but the pace was kept high. Vos won the intermediate sprint ahead of Ruby Roseman-Gannon (Liv-AlUla-Jayco) and Marthe Truyen (Fenix-Deceuninck) while Wiebes, Kool, Balsamo and others saved themselves for the final sprint.

Amanda Spratt (Lidl-Trek), Olympic road race champion Kristen Faulkner (EF-Oatly-Cannondale), and Balsamo suffered misfortune with crashes or mechanicals on the run-in to The Hague, but they all made their way back to the peloton.

The sprinters’ teams lined up at the front in the final 15km, and even the 2023 Tour de France Femmes winner Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime), took turns in her team’s lead-out train for Wiebes.

Élise Chabbey, Alice Towers (Canyon-SRAM), Barbara Malcotti (Human Powered Health), and Loes Adegeest (FDJ-Suez) crashed in the last three kilometres.

Up front, SD Worx-Protime were in control as the race passed the flamme rouge. But in the chaos of the final five hundred metres, Wiebes suffered a serious mechanical problem and was unable to pedal after another rider rode into her rear derailleur. Wiebes was unable to sprint and could only watch on as her rivals surged ahead of her.

Kool came from behind and surged past Wiebes’s lead out Barbara Guarischi to win with a good margin ahead of the four closest riders behind her. She also took the first yellow jersey and the green jersey of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes. Stage runner-up Ahtosalo took the best young rider’s white jersey.

They will wear the jerseys during Tuesday’s 67.9km morning stage from Dordrecht to Rotterdam.

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