Key events
70km to go: “The sponsors will only want to invest if they think they can capture an audience,” writes Jeremy Boyce of the lack of live coverage. “The audience is ready and waiting …”
71km to go: The gap has crept up to 2min 13sec. The leading six are working well together. To recap, the riders in this break are:
Marianne Vos (Team Visma | Lease a Bike)
Justine Ghekiere and Julie Van de Velde (AG Insurance – Soudal)
Sara Martín (Movistar)
Sarah Roy (Cofidis Women)
Ruth Edwards (Human Powered Health).
73km to go: The gap for the six-rider break is now 2min. There will be plenty of concerned DS’s on the teams who have missed this move.
74km to go: Pieterse and Ghekiere are duking it out for the QOM points. Pieterse closed the gap on her rival to one by winning maximum points on the category one Col de la Croix de la Serra. But now Ghekiere is first over the Côte de Bois d’Arlod, nabbing another two points from the breakaway, so her lead is back out to three.
Julie Van de Velde was second and took one point.
76km to go: A six-rider breakaway clipped off the front on the long descent off the first climb and they have built a lead of 1min 25sec. Vos (Visma Lease A Bike), Ghekiere (AG Insurance Soudal), Van de Velde (AG Insurance Soudal), Edwards (Human Powered Health), Roy (Cofidis) and Martin (Movistar) are there.
81km to go: These are the four climbs to come today:
Côte de Bois d’Arlod (2.4km distance, 4.6% average gradient)
Côte de Cercier (4km, 4.8%)
Col de Saint-Jean-de-Sixt (5.4km, 5.1%)
Le Grand-Bornand (7km, 5.1%)
There is also an intermediate sprint at Frangy, with 65.8km to go, between the Côte de Bois d’Arlod and the Côte de Cercier.
88km to go: The average speed thus far is 38.3km/h. Which is extremely fast when you factor in the small matter of the category one climb they’ve been over, even while factoring in the immutable law that what goes up, must come down.
“The riders covered 35.1 km in the second hour of racing.” states the official site. “With an average speed of 38.4 km/h so far they are ahead of the fastest expected schedule.”
92km to go: Utter confusion reigns in regard to the Eurosport TV schedule, as per.
On their website the listings state that the live coverage starts at 11.30, but it appears to be 12.30 BST / 13.30 CET.
97km to go: Puck Pieterse, who won stage four in dramatic fashion, was first over the top of the Col de la Croix de la Serra.
1. Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) 10 pts
2. Ghekiere (AG Insurance – Soudal Team) 8 pts
3. Kastelijn (Fenix-Deceuninck) 6 pts
4. Swinkels (UAE Team ADQ) 4 pts
5. Niewiadoma (Canyon//SRAM Racing) 2 pts
6. Lippert (Movistar Team) 1 pt
Kool abandons
108km to go: The peloton is just cresting the Col de la Croix de la Serra, the first climb, and the only category one on today’s menu.
There are 113 riders in the front group including, I believe, all the GC contenders.
Dsm–firmenich PostNL’s Charlotte Kool, meanwhile, has abandoned:
Kool won stage one, in the The Hague, last weekend:
A quick recap of stage six …
Cédrine Kerbaol took the first-ever stage win by a French rider in the modern Tour de France Femmes, with a daring attack 15km from the finish in Morteau, to move up to second in the overall standings, with two mountain stages of the race remaining.
“First French winner on the Tour de France Femmes, that’s something super-cool,” Kerbaol said after victory on stage six. “I hope it gives a lot of motivation to the next generation. That’s what I’m thinking about.” Her Ceratizit-WNT team’s social-media feed was more succinct. “Holy shit!” it exclaimed on X.
The path to her success was laid by an initial attack from the local rider Juliette Labous, who was racing on the roads of her youth. But if Labous was too tightly marked by the favourites to break away, Kerbaol was not and she moved clear over the top of the final climb, the Côte des Fins.
Read more here …
Preamble
The first six days have been eventful – from the extremely congested top of the general classification, to Demi Vollering’s stage five crash that looks likely to have cost her overall victory. But everything remains up for grabs in this weekend’s concluding two stages.
Just 22sec separates the top four riders in GC and over a minute is the range across the top 10: Vollering, of SD Worx Protime, now sits 10th and 1min 19sec is the margin that separates the reigning champion from the current overall leader, Kasia Niewiadoma of Canyon/Sram Racing.
As Niewiadoma said after stage five and Vollering’s mishap, “1:19 in the mountains is nothing to be honest”, so expect the GC to be shaken up significantly by the coming 166.4km route, featuring five categorised climbs, between Champagnole and Le Grand Bornand. If tomorrow’s finish atop Alpe d’Huez is the Queen Stage, today is first in line to the throne.
Scheduled stage start time: 11.30 BST