The fourth edition of the French stage race began on Saturday with a short but tricky stage in Brittany. Team Visma | Lease a Bike continuously positioned itself at the front and did everything possible to protect Vos and Ferrand-Prévot as best they could. In the final uphill kilometre, it was Ferrand-Prévot who was the first to open up a gap.

The Frenchwoman seemed to be heading for the stage victory, but Kim Le Court had other ideas. Vos followed and prevented Le Court from taking the victory with a powerful final sprint. This meant that the stage victory and the yellow jersey went to the veteran of Team Visma | Lease a Bike. Ferrand-Prévot finished in an impressive third place.

"This is fantastic. I can't describe what this means to me. Of course, we had hoped for a scenario in which Pauline and I would be at the front, but I never expected it to turn out like this", Vos said. "This is truly a team effort. The girls worked extremely hard to get us into a good position for the final climb. I am incredibly grateful to them, and to Pauline in particular."

Vos is referring to her teammate's late breakaway attempt, which just fell short of the finish. "Pauline took the lead with 500 metres to go. I looked around and saw Kim picking up the pace. I followed her and saw that she was getting close to Pauline. I had no choice but to go all out to win the race. It feels a little bittersweet, because I would have been happy for Pauline too, but in the end we are both very happy with this achievement."

Ferrand-Prévot is also beaming from ear to ear. "We knew it would be a short and fast stage, so we decided to stay at the front as a team for the entire race. That way, we tried to stay out of trouble. On the final climb, I was in the lead and suddenly had a gap. I knew Marianne was behind me, so that was the perfect situation for us. I'm very happy that she won the stage."