{"id":844220,"date":"2026-08-03T11:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T11:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/844220\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T11:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T11:02:11","slug":"tour-de-france-femmes-stage-3-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/844220\/","title":{"rendered":"Tour de France Femmes Stage 3 preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After back-to-back victories to open the Tour de France Femmes, the streak may come to an end Monday for yellow jersey <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclingmagazine.ca\/sections\/news\/in-yellow-wiebes-wins-second-consecutive-tour-de-france-femmes-stage\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lorena Wiebes<\/a>. The 157.9-km route from Geneva to Poligny is far from a straightforward sprint stage. It\u2019s tough. Maybe too tough for the maillot jaune. There\u2019s a pretty brutal opening half that could reshape the race long before the finish.<\/p>\n<p>Stage 3 of the Tour de France Femmes<\/p>\n<p>The riders leave Switzerland for France almost immediately. But to get outta that country, they need to get over the biggest lump of the day. Around 12 km into the stage comes the Col de la Faucille. It\u2019s a doozy: an 11.4-km climb averaging 6.3 per cent. Then the women have the C\u00f4te de la Lajoux and the Col de la Savine, giving aggressive riders plenty of opportunities to attack while putting pressure on the sprinters.<\/p>\n<p>The final categorized climb, the C\u00f4te de Chaux-Champagny, crests with about 25 km remaining. After that, the road trends downhill or flat into Poligny. So depending on how things shape up, there are a bunch of possible scenarios. A reduced bunch sprint is possible if the favourites regroup. But if things aren\u2019t controlled a strong breakaway could also stay clear. Even if it\u2019s not a GC day, those in the hunt for the yellow jersey need to pay attention and be at the front.<\/p>\n<p>Demi Vollering may go for it, if the others favorites are there. But she is thinking about yellow, so may mark others. Dutch ace Marianne Vos should dig a stage like this. Puncheurs such as Puck Pieterse or Kim Le Court will also be fans of today\u2019s parcours.<\/p>\n<p>The Canucks<\/p>\n<p>Victoria\u2019s Sarah Van Dam always does well in reduced bunch sprints, but her duties may be protecting team leader Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot. But if she\u2019s given some freedom, it could be a good day. St Michel\u2013Pr\u00e9f\u00e9rence Home\u2013Auber93\u2019s Alison Jackson will definitely try and animate the stage, but the late climbs may not suit her in the finish. Oro-Medonte, Ont.\u2019s Isabella Holmgren will probably make sure she\u2019s in the selection but save her legs for the real climbs\u2014her specialty. Same goes for Liv AlUla Jayco\u2019s Nadia Gontova, who has proven she has what it takes in the high mountains this year.<\/p>\n<p>Action gets underway on <a href=\"http:\/\/FloBikes.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FloBikes.com<\/a> at 9:45 a.m. and if you\u2019re oot and aboot, don\u2019t fret, just check back here on Canadian Cycling Magazine for a full report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After back-to-back victories to open the Tour de France Femmes, the streak may come to an end Monday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[291441,49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-844220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-2026-tour-de-france-femmes","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}