Annemiek Van Vleuten won the first edition of
Tour de France Femmes. She took the yellow jersey with stage 7 victory and continued dominating the eighth stage until the end.
“It's a dream come true. To win in yellow here at the top was wonderful,” said Van Vleuten. She continues, “It hasn't been an easy day; it hasn't been an easy week. It's been a rollercoaster of emotions and difficulties. Even today has not been an easy day. To be able to finish off all the work of these months, in yellow, alone... it's the best way. It gives me enormous pride to be the first winner of this new women's Tour de France and for this race to be back on the calendar. I hope this great start will give the race a good future and that it will continue to grow.”
It was the 94th victory for her. From struggling to cross the finish line in the opening stages of the tour to consecutively winning two stages, she has achieved what others would call impossible."It's a nice milestone to win this first edition of the Tour, and I think it's now, at the end of it, that I'm going to start to realize what I've achieved, and I'm really going to enjoy it,” Van Vleueten said.
She dominated the seventh stage and crossed the finish line first with a lead of over 3 minutes in GC, and she was hoping to maintain her lead in the 8th stage and ultimately ended up winning it. “Yesterday had already been an incredible day, but I wanted to stay focused and finish it off. We couldn't really celebrate. But now we can really enjoy that ice cream, that pizza tonight, and celebrate with the team. Sometimes the team tells me that I don't take advantage, that I don't enjoy myself, and that I always go on. I think today will be the day when I can really start to savor all that effort,” concluded Van Vleuten.
