Tour de France Femmes 2024: stage five, Bastogne to Amnéville – live | Tour de France Femmes

65km to go: Adegeest is away at the front, before being joined by Julie Van de Velde (AG Insurance-Soudal Team) and double cyclo-cross world champion Fem van Empel. The Charlotte Kool chase was successful; she’s back in the pack. All eyes on an intermediate spring that’s imminent within 20km. The gap to the break is 55’.

73km to go: Now for the Cote de Fermont: where the Queen of the Mountains result is won by Loes Adegeest on a breakaway. That polka race is now tight after Silvia Persico took second.

75km to go: They’ve previously been over the Pancras and Pieterse took the two mountain points to add to her hold on the jersey. Back in the pack: Charlotte Kool has dropped off the main group, or at least does for a while. She’s in the green jersey and tipped to be a stage winner, but is over a minute down. How is this advertised as flat stage?

84km to go: The race has just entered France, still picking itself up from Paris 2024, and the peloton is back together after a couple of attacks were pulled back, as they climb the Cote de St-Pancre – St Pancras.

Who is St Pancras?

Saint Pancras, a 14-year-old boy who had converted to Christianity and would not renounce his faith. As a result, he was beheaded by Diocletian in Rome in 304AD. He is the patron saint of children. Right.

Via the official site: “The 137 riders who completed the 4th stage yesterday took the start of Stage 5. As Spela Kern (Cofidis) has since abandoned, the peloton currently has 136 riders. The Tashkent City team only have one rider left, Yanina Kuskova.”

The Tashkent City story is one that requires investigation. The excellent Rouleur have done a standup job of it.

“In the opening stage of the race, four of the team’s seven riders failed to finish the flat sprint day. They started the second stage with only three riders, two of whom were dropped on the 67 kilometre route to Rotterdam. Criticism has been thrown at Tashkent for taking a spot in the world’s biggest bike race as the likes of Lifeplus-Wahoo and Volkerwessels missed out – established Continental teams who have performed well at the Tour before.”

“Groysman explained. “Last year we only raced 1.1 or 2.2 races and this is a high level. It’s not easy. All of them have cried because of the criticism. I would challenge any team to bring seven Uzbekistan riders for this race and prepare them for the Tour in three years. They’re not ready for it, but we got here by UCI points and the UCI has to change their rules. We didn’t break them. It’s not fair to critique these girls, they work very hard.”

Race update, and it’s not being shown anywhere worldwide, VPN or nothing, it’s a fast-moving peloton, but as they moved towards 100km to go they are all together.

Those climbs today:

• A maximum of 11 points are available in the mountain classification on today’s five categorised climbs:

• Côte de Hotte (Km 14.1, Cat. 3, 1.2km at 7.9%)

• Côte de Saint-Pancré (Km 69.6, Cat. 4, 1.5km at 3.9%)

• Côte de Fermont (Km 79, Cat. 4, 1.5km at 4.6%)

• Côte de Briey (Km 125, Cat. 4, 1.1km at 4.4%)

• Côte de Montois-la-Montagne (Km 137.3, Cat. 4, 1.7km at 6%)

We’re underway in Bastogne, with limited TV coverage so far in the UK – would they do this for Les Hommes? – but there’s an early breakaway, from Elena Pirrone (Roland) attacks in the opening 5km and she creates a 30” gap. She’s joined in the breakaway by Michaela Drummon (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) at 7km, with the peloton at 20” over this first climb.

The first climb, the Cote de Hotte sees the following polka pointage.

• 1. Pirrone, 3 pts

• 2. Drummond, 2 pt

• 3. Persico, 1 pt

Here’s the jersey wearers on the fifth stage.

Wednesday’s report from Liege, from Jeremy Whittle.

The départ fictif is underway.

Preamble