Juliette Labous won't settle for "just another" top-5 at Tour de France: "Whatever happens, I’ll be disappointed if I finish fourth"

Juliette Labous is a little mixed feeling about the last year’s Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. She dropped one place compared to 2022, but her combative racing made her a protagonist of the race. This year, she already finished 4th at Vuelta and 5th at the Giro. The team dsm-firmenich PostNL leader hopes she can finally crack the podium this time.

Another top-five finish won’t satisfy the leader of the Dutch team. "This year, the podium really is the objective," Labous said at Velo. "I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. Whatever happens, I’ll be disappointed if I finish fourth."

Labous really likes the route of the Tour’s third edition. "If I’d been asked to design it, I would have done something similar. The opening stages are flat and nervous, and my team knows how to handle that type of situation. And from Valkenburg onwards, it’s going to be tough every day, and increasingly difficult over the last three."

The French rider will be very close to home on stage 6, finishing in Morteau, where her first cycling club is based. She’s looking forward to making a move there "if the opportunity arises and I’ve got the legs."