Key events
To burst any bubbles readers may have … maybe picturing me hugging Alberto Contador for dear life on the back of a motorbike in north-east France, while trying to type something, anything one-handed on a laptop … today’s blog comes to you from my second bedroom in SG19.
Strangely, despite big talk of “each and every stage will be broadcast from the start line to the finish on Eurosport”, this doesn’t appear to be the case, and the broadcaster appears to be sticking with highlights from yesterday’s stage despite the stage now being very much under way. Curious.
We Shall Overcome. The riders burst out of Reims as one, I’m told. We’ll keep tabs on any breakaways via the SUDDENLY VERY IMPORTANT OMIGOD DON’T BREAK DON’T BREAK live tracking.
Eurosport have been replaying yesterday’s horrendous crash … and it really doesn’t get any less grim through multiple rewatches. I won’t be going to go out of my way to link you up to that one.
Today’s neutralised start has begun. Fingers crossed as much of the peloton as possible stays upright and graze-free this day.
Dani Rowe has been making predictions … the former Team GB stalwart, with a string of wins on the road throughout her career, is backing Vos, Kopecky and Longo Borghini as today’s 1-2-3.
We’re 10 minutes away from the riders rolling out from Reims.
Will Vos be similarly jubilant at the finish line in Épernay this afternoon?
Frain later apologised for her part in the incident on Twitter.
She said: “After working hard to come back to the peloton in the convoy and with my teammate, the speed we rejoined the pack would have matched their pace. Unfortunately as I came off the wheel I was unaware [of] riders on the road from another crash. My teammate went to the left off the road but I didn’t have the opportunity to do the same given I didn’t see it. This meant I crashed overtop of the rider on the ground … I did my best to avoid it but I had nowhere I could go.
“Naturally this was never the intention and I am sorry for those involved. I am sore as well, and will monitor how I feel. I’m lucky I could get back on my bike.”
Yesterday’s stage was marred by a series of ugly crashes.
The biggest involved Marta Cavalli, of the FDJ-Suez Futuroscope team, and winner of the Amstel Gold Race, La Flèche Wallonne and Mont Ventoux Dénivelé Challenge this year, was caught up in an absolutely hideous incident where she slowed to avoid a three-rider crash in front of her.
Unfortunately, the fast-moving Nicole Frain behind had failed to pick up the danger and absolutely clattered the Italian, sending her somersaulting over and landing on her back. Frain, the Australian national champion of the Parkhotel Valkenburg team, smashed into the floored bikes and torpedoed off her own, several bike-lengths down the road.
Fairly astonishingly, Cavalli got back on and continued, but was later withdrawn from the race with a concussion. Frain also remounted and finished the stage 3min 22sec behind Vos.
Sad news to arrive to this morning – Laura Kenny is more renowned for her track exploits but was also the British National Road Race Championships winner in 2014, than win coming in a run of three podium slots.
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Laura Kenny, Britain’s five-time Olympic gold medallist, has revealed she contemplated walking away from cycling at the start of this year after a miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy left her at “breaking point”.
Kenny said in April that she had miscarried at nine weeks in November and had a fallopian tube removed in January due to an ectopic pregnancy – when a fertilised egg implants itself outside the womb. The 30-year-old won the madison at last year’s Tokyo Games, where her husband, Jason, became Britain’s most decorated Olympian, with seven golds in cycling.
“I felt like nothing was going our way at all,” said Kenny. “January was a tipping point, I was at breaking point. Without Jason, I think I’d have just canned everything and just gone, ‘You know what, I can’t even cope with doing any of this [cycling]’. But I grabbed for my safety blanket and decided I needed to ride my bike again. That’s what I’ve done for the last 13 years. It feels like a safe place.”
Full story here, and no end of thoughts with the Kennys.
Un parcours vallonné au menu de jour qui devrait plaire aux meilleures puncheuses du peloton ! ?
A hilly race is on the programme which should be in the sights of the best puncheurs! ?#TDFF pic.twitter.com/vt87l1indK
— Le Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift (@LeTourFemmes) July 26, 2022
Jeremy Whittle’s stage two report
The evergreen Marianne Vos, a multiple world champion, crowned her illustrious career by taking her first yellow jersey in the Tour de France Femmes after emphatically winning stage two of the week-long race in Provins.
Vos, who was beaten to the line on the Champs Élysées in the opening stage by Lorena Wiebes on Sunday, made no mistake on the uphill sprint into the medieval town. “We were aiming to take a stage win and we knew that was going to be hard but we wanted to take the opportunity when it came,” she said.
The 35-year-old, winner of the first La Course, the one-day precursor to the revived Tour de France Femmes, has been one of the influential figures campaigning for its rebirth.
“When nine years ago we were talking with ASO [Amaury Sport Organisation] about an opportunity to get a race, it went really fast to get La Course going,” Vos recalled. “When we raced La Course for the first time on the Champs Élysées, it felt like a milestone. Now to be here for a real Tour de France, with all the emotion of a stage race, that’s another milestone.”
Read more here
Standings after stage two
General classification
1 Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma) 5hr 7mins 46secs
2 Silvia Persico (Valcar-Travel & Service) +0:10sec
3 Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) +0:12
4 Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) +0:18
5 Maike Van Der Duin (Le Col-Wahoo) +0:28
6 Lorena Wiebes (DSM) +0:35
7 Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx) +0:41
8 Rachaele Barbieri (Liv Racing Xstra) +0:45
9 Julie De Wilde (Plantur-Pura) +0:45
10 Demi Vollering (SD Worx) +0:45
Points
1 Vos 120pts
2 Wiebes 104
3 Kopecky 85
Climber
1 Femke Markus (Parkhotel Valkenburg) 2pts
2 Femke Gerritse (Parkhotel Valkenburg) 1
3 Anne Dorthe Ysland (Uno-X Pro Cycling) 1
4 Marit Raaijmakers (Human Powered Health) 1
Team
1 Canyon-SRAM 15hr 25min 9secs
2 Jumbo-Visma +0:05sec
3 Trek-Segafredo +0:19
Preamble
Greetings. Today marks the third instalment of eight in this year’s historic event. It’s a 133.6km jaunt from Reims to Éperney, starting roughly that distance north-east of the French capital. After a couple of days on the flat, today’s profile: “hilly”, according to organisers. It features a few category four impediments and a category three, Côte de Mutigny, a 0.77km climb at 13.9%. The peak of that arrives 16km from the finish.
With more hills on the way tomorrow, expect a shake-up in the top 10, and the 45 seconds currently separating yellow jersey from 10th place to become a bit more of a gulf. Can Marianne Vos hang on to the top spot? Let’s find out.
Riders roll at 11.50am BST, with the stage proper due to begin at noon.
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