Key events
145km to go: I don’t currently have the luxury of live pictures, but the average speed – 44.6km/h – would suggest things are relatively calm in the peloton. Relatively being the operative word.
150km to go: Vos’s ability, combined with the time she’s spent at the top of the sport, is nothing short of astonishing. I’m old enough to remember her beating Lizzie Deignan (then Armitstead) to the women’s road race gold medal at London 2012.
152km to go: “We’ll have to see how the day will go,” said the race leader Marianne Vos before today’s stage. “It’s the longest stage and there is more climbing in the final. Every rider, the whole bunch wants to be in the breakaway today. So it’s going to be an especially tough start.”
Regarding the points classification battle with Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) –the green-jersey wearer Wiebes leads Vos by 40pts – she said: “Lorena has a good advantage, and as we said up front, that’s not the main target. With Lorena as competition you know that’s going to be hard.”
Quotes via LeTourFemmes.fr
154km to go: Franziska Koch (Picnic–PostNL) has gone on the attack yet again. She was really strong yesterday and spent most of the day in a two-rider break. And she’s obviously feeling good … however, the peloton is all together, after Franziska Brausse (Ceratizit) chased Koch down.
The Polish rider Agnieszka Skalniak-Sojka, of Canyon/Sram-zondacrypto, was the solitary withdrawal before today’s race. You can see the full list of abandonments here on the official site.
“She’ll be deeply missed but above all, we’re hoping that she recovers quickly,” the team wrote on X.
There are 143 riders remaining.
Stage five has begun
We are racing. No, they are racing.
The temperature, according to the official site, is a mere 22.5C. That is almost wintry by the standards of the Tour de France.
Points classification: top 10 before stage five
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
Speaking after yesterday’s stage, Pauline Ferrand Prévot (Team Visma-Lease A Bike) said she is looking forward to the road going up … she’s feeling good, clearly, and will be making an assault on the GC in the high mountains.
With the top 10 all within 31sec of race leader Marianne Vos it is all looking extremely well poised for the mountain stages.
Christian Prudhomme, director of the men’s race, said over the weekend he had hoped for “more of a duel” between Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard in the GC. Well, here is the tight overall battle he wanted.
Top 10 GC after before stage five
Today, you suspect, will not be a GC day, but here is the top 10:
1) Marianne Vos (Team Visma-Lease A Bike) 11hr 13min 11sec
2) Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) +12sec
3) Kimberley Le Court Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal) +12sec
4) Pauline Ferrand Prévot (Team Visma-Lease A Bike) +18sec
5) Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon/Sram Zondacrypto) +22sec
6) Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) +25sec
7) Anna Van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) +27sec
8) Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) +27sec
9) Niamh Fisher-Black (Lidl-Trek) +31sec
10) Chloe Dygert (Canyon/Sram Zondacrypto) +31sec
That, of course, is Jeremy Whittle’s stage report from yesterday, which you have ample time to peruse before today’s hostilities.
Lorena Wiebes secured her second stage win in the 2025 Tour de France Femmes on the Avenue John Kennedy in Poitiers, after again fending off her Dutch compatriot Marianne Vos in an uphill sprint.
Wiebes, who also won the Italian classic Milan-San Remo and the the points classification in the Giro d’Italia, described 2025 as her “best season to date”. She has also won five Giro stages between from 2021-2025.
“I have tried to have more of a free mindset, like I had in the Giro,” Wiebes, of Team SD Worx-Protime, said. “This season has already been really good, even if I hadn’t won in the Tour de France. It doesn’t feel like we have a lot of pressure from the team.”
Preamble
The profile of stage five, between Chasseneuil-du-Poitou and Guéret, looks ripe for a breakaway in the final: there are three categorised climbs inside the last 36km, two category fours and one category three, after a relatively flat 130km or so.
However, the location of the day’s intermediate sprint, at Dun-le-Palestel after 127km, may lead certain teams to try and control the race until then. Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx–Protime), who leads the green jersey standings after two stage wins in two days, said yesterday she may try to get in breakaways to fight for more points. But perhaps Marianne Vos, the overall leader and yellow-jersey wearer, and her Visma-Lease A Bike team will lend a hand in controlling things.
At 165.8km, this transitional stage is the longest of this year’s race. It will be interesting to see how fierce the battle to form an early breakaway becomes, because there are already plenty of tired bodies in the peloton, with a few teams and riders hoping for a relatively easy day with a non-threatening breakaway allowed up the road.
This being the Tour de France Femmes, though, it’ll probably be flat-out all the way.
Stage start time: 12.35pm UK/1.35pm local
