Tour De France Femmes 2023 Winner
As of today Tour De France Femmes 2023 has ended, and Demi Vollering was crowned champion of the second edition of this race. Vollering’s exceptional performance during stage 7, where she gained a lead of over 1 minute and 50 seconds, solidified her overall victory. With such a comfortable lead, all she needed to do was complete the rest of the course with a good time.
Battle for the overall 2023 first place
The battle for the overall podium was intense, and Lotte Kopecky from SD Worx displayed incredible skill, securing the second position and surpassing Kasia Niewiadoma from Canyon-SRAM by a razor-thin margin. Unfortunately, the Olympic Time Trial champion, Annemiek van Vleuten, faced challenges and slipped to fourth place overall.
SD Worx showcased their dominance on the final stage as they claimed all three spots on the podium. Marlen Reusser won the time trial with an impressive time of 29:15 on the 22.6km course. Vollering secured second place, and Kopecky finished in third.
Kopecky secured the green jersey by outscoring Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio by 90 points in the points standings. Niewiadoma claimed the polka-dot jersey by edging out Yara Kastelijn from Fenix-Deceuninck by 4 points in the climber’s award. In the battle for the white jersey, Cédrine Kerbaol proved to be faster than Ella Wyllie, the only rider with a chance to surpass her in the best young rider competition.
SD Worx emerged victorious in the team competition while Kastelijn was honored with the super-combativity prize.
Second Tour de France Femmes
In the second year of the Tour de France Femmes, the event ended with an individual time trial on stage 8. The 22.6km course, starting and finishing in the Pyrenean city of Pau, was mostly flat, with a small hill in the middle.
The riders set off at one-minute intervals, and the last 20 racers having a two-minute gap before tackling the final stage.
Vittoria Guazzini, the U23 TT World Champion and the seventh rider to start, initially set an impressive time of 30:36. While Georgie Howe and Audrey Cordon-Ragot showed faster intermediate time checks, they lost time to Guazzini in the latter part of the stage.
Grace Brown surpassed Guazzini’s intermediate time check with a rapid 17:05 and held on to secure the best time, beating it by 28 seconds. However, her time at the top was short-lived.
Tour de France Femmes domination in 2023 race
European Champion Marlen Reusser dominated the intermediate time check, extending her lead by another 27 seconds over Brown. With a custom-molded TT handlebar, she clocked an exceptional time of 29:15, outpacing Brown by 40 seconds and becoming the only woman to break the 30-minute mark. Reusser’s performance was impressive as she expertly navigated through other riders and team cars while maintaining a blistering tempo. In the fight for a podium finish, Lotte Kopecky raced around the course and overtook Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio in the final two kilometers to secure third place, finishing 38 seconds behind the leader.
Olympic Time Trial champion Annemiek van Vleuten faced some challenges but fought hard until the finish line, ending up in 14th place. She slipped off the overall podium to fourth place.
Kasia Niewiadoma put on a strong performance in the time trial, finishing ninth in the stage, with a 1:23 gap from the leader.
Demi Vollering, started strong, recording the second-fastest time at the intermediate check, trailing Marlen Reusser by 13 seconds. She maintained her impressive tempo and secured second place on the stage, ultimately attaining her overall victory.
Photo of Demi Vollering (left), Annemiek van Vleuten (centre) and Marianne Vos (right) at the 2022 Tour de France Femmes from Wikipedia
Photo by: A.BourgeoisP
Licensed with CC BY-SA 4.0