Charlotte Kool surprises SD Worx and wins the first Tour de France Femmes stage

Surprise on the first day of the Tour de France Femmes, as Lorena Wiebes was absent from the sprint and in her home country of The Netherlands, Charlotte Kool brought in the win for Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL.

The opening day of the race was completely flat and an opportunity for the sprinters to take the glory and the yellow jersey. A few riders of the Tashkent City Women Professional Cycling Team were victims of the pace and three abandoned the race early on.

The likes of Gaia Realini, Fem van Empel and Grace Brown were involved in an early crash, and with 29 kilometers to go Amanda Spratt also hit the deck, but overall there wasn't too much stress in the peloton until the final kilometers.

Cristina Tonetti, Giorgia Vettorello and Iurani Blanco were the riders that made a move to form a breakaway but Tonetti was in fact isolated, taking the first KOM jersey of the race. She was caught with 60 kilometers to go. In the intermediate sprint Marianne Vos sprinted to first place, and then the fight for the leadouts began into The Hague.

SD Worx and DSM both had numbers in the final kilometer and it was a furious sprint. But main favourite Lorena Wiebes was nowhere to be seen. DSM did a leadout and when Kool launched her sprint she immediately got a gap over her rivals, racing to the first stage win beating Anninna Ahtosalo and Elisa Balsamo.