Tour de France Femmes: Another Sprint Stage Ahead

Sprinters will once again take center stage in today’s fourth stage of the Tour de France Femmes, a short and flat 130.7-kilometer route from Saumur to Poitiers. Dutch veteran Marianne Vos (Visma–Lease a Bike) will start the day wearing the yellow jersey.

With the best of the race still ahead, the peloton—now reduced to 146 riders from the original 154 that departed Vannes on Saturday—will transition from the Pays de la Loire region to Nouvelle-Aquitaine in a stage tailor-made for sprinters.

Vos, a two-time Olympic champion and five-time world champion, currently leads the general classification at 38 years old, holding a six-second advantage over Mauritian rider Kimberley Le Court (AG Insurance–Soudal) and a 12-second lead over French hopeful Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma–Lease a Bike).

The top overall contenders remain outside the podium, biding their time for the mountain stages. Defending champion Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Canyon–SRAM) sits fourth, 16 seconds behind, while Dutch rider Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ) is sixth, trailing by 19 seconds.

Vollering’s condition will be closely watched after a crash in yesterday’s stage raised concerns among her supporters.

The sole Latin American rider still in the race, Brazil’s Ana Vitoria Magalhaes (Movistar), holds a modest 123rd place.

In the team standings, FDJ-SUEZ leads the fourth edition of the race, followed by Canyon–SRAM.