La Route de France stage one recap
Every professional North American cycling race includes women, usually in a separate division but always racing the same route, but most of the major European races do not, including the most famous cycling race in the world, the Tour de France. La Route de France is the female response to the Tour and one of the only professional races in the world exclusively for women. As of stage one, Annemiek van Vleuten holds the overall leader’s jersey, four seconds ahead of German rider Sarah Düster.
The race this year began with a hilly 5.9km prologue, won by German Sarah Düster at the head of the Cervélo TestTeam narrowly ahead of Van Vleuten. Olga Zabelinskaya finished in third, seven seconds behind, followed by Judith Arndt and Marianne Vos, each behind by another two seconds from the previous finisher. Düster’s teammate Elizabeth Armitstead finished in ninth as the best young rider.
"Today I went full gas from the start because I had really good legs and was able to keep it up all the way to the finish," said Düster. "I am really proud of my result, actually I can't believe it. I was sitting so long in the chair at the finish line, and all the big riders came in but nobody passed me. The team once again performed very well. Our goal is to keep the jersey as long as possible and we will work for it day by day”
Düster entered the 116.4km first stage in the overall leader’s jersey, but failed to contend in the flat field-sprint at the end of the day. HTC-Columbia rider Ina-Yoko Teutenberg won the stage, her 21st win this season, ahead of Giorgia Bronzini.
"I wanted to lead out Adrie [Visser] for the sprint but I actually went too hard with 300m go and we lost contact," said Teutenberg. "I ended up closing a gap on some other riders, and then could hold off Bronzini to get the win.”
Van Vleuten finished the stage in third place which, added to her second place finish in the prologue, earned her the overall race leadership four seconds ahead of Düster. Zabelinskaya, third place in the prologue, finished in the bunch and stand in third, 11 seconds behind.
"It was a pretty flat finish, fairly straightforward, but I didn't feel too great doing the sprint,” said Teutenberg. “The sprint hurt a lot more than it usually does. I haven't raced since the Giro and I was suffering a lot on that last hill. I was about to get dropped. We [HTC-Columbia] want to go for GC here, and there's a time trial on Thursday, where Judith [Arndt] could be going for yellow. So we'll take it day by day and see how it goes."
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