Sol\u00e8ne Muller was a surprise winner of the opening stage of the four-day Faun Tour Femmes on Thursday, the St Michel-Preference Homes-Auber93 rider took her first professional win.<\/p>\n
Part of a huge breakaway which had escaped early in the race, the French woman attacked the group on the final uphill drag to the line, around 1,500m from the line, drawing a group of five clear.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n With 175 metres to go and the peloton closing them down, she opened her sprint and beat Ninke Vinke (SD Worx-Protime) into second place, with Anna Henderson (Lidl-Trek) third.<\/p>\n Latest Videos FromCyclingnews<\/p>\n Formerly known as the Cycliste F\u00e9minin International de l’Ard\u00e8che<\/a>, the race contracted from one week to just four days for this year. Though the event is only a third-tier 2.1 race, six WorldTour teams were on the start line, and many of them were represented up the road, limiting the chase.<\/p>\n Early in Thursday\u2019s 115.7km opening stage between Guilherand Granges and Boffres, a huge breakaway of 20 riders or more got away.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n However, with the lead well over three minutes with 50km to go, and despite having local rider L\u00e9a Curinier in that breakaway, the FDJ United-SUEZ team began to ride.<\/p>\n The French squad steadily brought the deficit down, and when they were within 1:35 with 20km to go it seemed it was advantage peloton. However, despite a lack of commitment in the front group, the gap settled on the day\u2019s final climb.<\/p>\n On the final uphill three kilometres to the line, riders in the leading group began attacking each other, lifting the pace and ensuring they could fight for the win.<\/p>\n Results<\/p>\n Swipe to scroll horizontally<\/p>\n Position<\/p>\n Rider (Country) Team<\/p>\n Time Gap<\/p>\n 1<\/p>\n Sol\u00e8ne Muller (Fra) St Michel – Preference Home – Auber93<\/p>\n 3:08:27<\/p>\n 2<\/p>\n Nienke Vinke (Ned) SD Worx-Protime<\/p>\n Row 1 – Cell 2 <\/p>\n 3<\/p>\n Anna Henderson (GBr) Lidl-Trek<\/p>\n Row 2 – Cell 2 <\/p>\n 4<\/p>\n Cl\u00e9mence Latimier (Fra) Ma Petite Entreprise<\/p>\n Row 3 – Cell 2 <\/p>\n 5<\/p>\n Niamh Fisher-Black (NZl) Lidl-Trek<\/p>\n Row 4 – Cell 2 <\/p>\n 6<\/p>\n Lore De Schepper (Bel) AG Insurance-Soudal<\/p>\n Row 5 – Cell 2 <\/p>\n 7<\/p>\n Juliette Berthet (Fra) FDJ United-SUEZ<\/p>\n Row 6 – Cell 2 <\/p>\n 8<\/p>\n Ur\u0161ka \u017digart (Slo) AG Insurance-Soudal<\/p>\n 0:00:07<\/p>\n 9<\/p>\n Petra Zsank\u00f3 (Hun) Aromitalia Vaiano<\/p>\n Row 8 – Cell 2 <\/p>\n 10<\/p>\n Gaia Segato (Ita) Vini Fantini- Bepink<\/p>\n Row 9 – Cell 2 <\/p>\n For unbeatable coverage across road, gravel and tech, subscribe to Cyclingnews. You’ll get comprehensive race coverage of La Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, subscriber-exclusive analysis from our expert columnists, in-depth features and industry-leading tech insight. Plus, the Cyclingnews app lets you follow the action wherever you go! Join today.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sol\u00e8ne Muller was a surprise winner of the opening stage of the four-day Faun Tour Femmes on Thursday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":887181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-887180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/887181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}