Tour de France Femmes : between badluck and fighting spirit

The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift stayed in Brittany this Sunday. Between Brest and Quimper, the Winspace Orange Seal's riders continued to battle alongside the best in the world — not without setbacks, but always with determination. The French ProTeam will unfortunately continue the race without Marie-Morgane Le Deunff, who finished the stage outside the time limit, though she was cheered all the way by her home crowd.

A rather unusual incident disrupted the day: on the first climb in Châteaulin, a flag got caught in Nadia Gontova’s bike, forcing her to stop and deal with the unexpected obstacle. As a result, our Canadian lost significant time and was unable to rejoin the main group. "There was a bit of wind, and a flag flew into my cassette," Nadia explained. "It was really hard to get out, and a spectator tried to help me. I had to chase all day — it was really tough. It’s frustrating, but that’s cycling. The mountain stages are coming up and they suit me well, so I’m not too disappointed. Tomorrow is a new day."

Franck Renimel, sports director, gave a frank assessment of the situation : "We quickly realized it would be tight for Marie-Morgane to make the time cut. Sadly, she didn’t. As for the race itself, we had hoped for more. I’m convinced Nadia could’ve stayed with the front group much longer without that flag incident. Even if the GC wasn’t our main goal, we’re still far back. It’s a shame we couldn’t get in the break, but the pace was so high that everything came down to raw strength. If you look at the results, it’s the champions up front, so we can still be proud. We've had bad luck — today with the flag, yesterday with two crashes affecting strong riders. Monday’s stage will be tough on the legs — it’s an unusually long one at 163 kilometers. The key will be to race proactively, even though it’s likely to end in a sprint where Fiona (Mangan) could shine."

On Monday, Stage 3 will take the peloton from La Gacilly to Angers.

Results :

66 - Karolina Perekitko

67 - Marine Allione

69 - Nadia Gontova

100 - Fiona Mangan

120 - Constance Valentin

146 - Kiara Lylyk

HD - Marie-Morgane Le Deunff

Photo credit : Quentin Photographie BE