Victorious van Vleuten rides into yellow

Dutchwoman kept everyone guessing throughout the week, but made her move in the mountains

Annemiek van Vleuten won the Tour de France Femmes at the weekend with two dominant rides in the mountains and in doing so made good on her pledge to win the Giro-Tour double at her first attempt.

The race’s final two stages in the mountains were always going to be her playground, but the ruthlessness she displayed in despatching her rivals was mesmerising.

Last Saturday’s Queen stage to Le Markstein in the Vosges mountains saw her turn a 1.28 general classification deficit into a 3.14 advantage with a huge solo effort. The following day to La Super Planches des Belles Filles, after several bike changes saw her having to chase back on, she left her rivals for dust well before the final gravel section at the top of the climb, beating SD Worx’s Demi Vollering by 30 seconds.

Van Vleuten winning will surprise no one, but everyone was wondering up until stage six if it was possible. Stomach issues earlier in the race saw her go into the final stages with that GC deficit and were so bad they threatened to force her from the race.

“The second stage was s**t,” said Movistar DS Jorge Sanz. “Our target that day was to hide how Annemiek was.”

On the short, sharp climb to the line in the walled city of Provins, east of Paris, she lost more than 40 seconds to some GC rivals, though importantly, only five to Vollering, who many saw as her main rival for yellow.

And while van Vleuten won the race in the Vosges, for her rivals it was perhaps lost on the hills and gravel tracks of the Champagne region on stages three and four.