{"id":845165,"date":"2026-08-04T00:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T00:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/845165\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T00:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T00:22:09","slug":"sigrid-haugset-stuns-tour-de-france-femmes-favourites-by-storming-to-stage-win-tour-de-france-femmes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/845165\/","title":{"rendered":"Sigrid Haugset stuns Tour de France Femmes favourites by storming to stage win | Tour de France Femmes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sigrid Haugset, the Norwegian national champion, shocked the established order in the Tour de France Femmes<\/a>, breaking away alone for 90km, to take the overall lead after winning stage three to Poligny.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never thought it was possible,\u201d she said, after realising she had taken the biggest success of her career and the overall lead in the sport\u2019s biggest race. \u201cIt\u2019s unreal. I was so dizzy at the end. I know my boyfriend would be so angry at me for not celebrating, but I couldn\u2019t. I could not lift my arms off the bike. It was impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haugset\u2019s spectacular solo effort surprised the peloton\u2019s leading teams and on the eve of the 21km individual time trial, from Gevrey\u2011Chambertin to Dijon, she leads by 2min 2sec from Kim Le Court.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was thinking about all my teammates and everyone cheering from home, so I had to give it my all,\u201d she said. \u201cAll done in the Norwegian champion\u2019s jersey, too \u2013 it\u2019s fantastic.<\/p>\n

We had looked at this stage and it was the goal for this Tour. I told my father I\u2019d get some flowers today. Tomorrow is the time trial, but I haven\u2019t worked on it this year so I will just enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haugset is the first Norwegian rider to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour Femmes. The 27-year-old\u2019s lone effort began at the foot of the second\u2011category Col de la Savine and was marked by an intense pursuit from the former world road race champion Lotte Kopecky, winner of the points classification in all three Grand Tours.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought Kopecky would catch me,\u201d Haugset said. \u201cI can\u2019t believe that she didn\u2019t, but I kept on. The team car was amazing, pushing me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although, in what became an epic duel, Kopecky got as close as 10sec to Haugset, she was not able to find the power to finally close the gap and the Norwegian moved clear again to win the stage by almost a minute and a half.<\/p>\n

Temperatures in the high 30s made it yet another suffocating and stifling day on the route, with the ever-present iced drinks and ice socks passed up to the riders throughout the 156km stage.<\/p>\n

As the sweat-streaked Haugset held on to win, the first sparring match between the race favourites came on the C\u00f4te de Chaux\u2011Champagny, 25km from Poligny, where Le Court accelerated and temporarily left her rivals in disarray. But as the narrow climb went on, with brief tentative accelerations from Kasia Niewiadoma and Demi Vollering, the main contenders regrouped and with Tuesday\u2019s potentially pivotal time trial looming large, a truce was called.<\/p>\n

There is some uncertainty over how well the defending champion, Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot, will fare in the winding test through the Routes des Grand Crus, which includes the sharp climb of the Lacets de Marsannay.<\/p>\n

Sigrid Haugset is the first Norwegian to wear the Tour de France Femmes yellow jersey. Photograph: Denis Balibouse\/Reuters<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a real challenge for me,\u201d she said, acknowledging her lack of time\u2011trialling experience, certainly compared with Vollering and Le Court. The double Olympic gold medallist said she has spent several months working to improve her time trialling, but accepts that she will have to \u201climit the damage\u201d against the clock.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made sure to put me in a more correct position on the time\u2011trial bike. We also set out to do quite a few aerodynamic tests on the track, and to try to find the fastest outfit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, she appears to accept she will be on the back foot as the peloton heads into the Rhone valley on Wednesday. \u201cIt\u2019s a possibility,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t know how much time I will lose, but I will give my best to lose the least possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot is not the only rider worrying about time losses, after the pre-race favourite Vollering crashed early in stage three, on the climb of the Col de la Faucille. The 2023 winner remounted and was active later in the stage, but her team carried out medical checks on an injured knee on Monday evening.<\/p>\n

Much of the south-east of France, which will host the summit finish to Mont Ventoux on Friday and the C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur stages on Friday and Saturday, remains under elevated risk of wildfires.<\/p>\n

While the climb of the Ventoux scheduled for stage seven is expected to remain intact, the current routing of the stage through the Ventoux\u2019s foothills could be affected.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the Vaucluse prefecture asked the Tour de France Femmes organisers to consider an alternative route. The prefecture is planning a risk assessment on Tuesday and has said that an \u201calternative route will be implemented should the wildfire risk be considered extreme\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sigrid Haugset, the Norwegian national champion, shocked the established order in the Tour de France Femmes, breaking away…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":845166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-845165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845165","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=845165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}