"This is the best day of my life" - Charlotte Kool over the moon with Tour de France Femmes victory

Charlotte Kool was in the past a leadout for Lorena Wiebes but had the difficult challenge of facing her biggest rival today on the opening day of the Tour de France Femmes. As luck would have it, a broken chain means she did not have to, and in the final sprint she was the strongest and took the yellow jersey in The Hague.

"It's unbelievable. This is a dream. It wasn't an easy season, but this is where it turned around. I want to thank so many people. My trainer, everyone around me. They always kept believing in me. It was a very hectic final, but I like that," Kool said in a post-race interview. The Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL rider was one of the favourites for today's stage but alongside Wiebes were also the likes of Elisa Balsamo and Marianne Vos which posed as threats.

But the Dutch team held it together well under pressure and managed to deploy the key pieces of the leadout already inside the final 500 meters. Taking advantage of the chaos in SD Worx after Wiebes suffered a mechanical, Kool launched her sprint from far but with slipstreaming and managed to be the fastest at the finish line, beating Anninna Ahtosalo and Elisa Balsamo to what is perhaps the biggest win of her career - and second of the season.

"I said that to myself too: 'it's hectic, it's chaos, this is fun'. In the sprint, I started from very far away. It hurt so much, but it was enough at the end. I have no words. This is the best day of my life. Everything comes together. That is very special," he concluded.