Juliette Labous (FDJ) finished second behind fellow French rider Maeva Squiban (UAE ADQ), but her late attack left team-mate Demi Vollering isolated and she lost out in a battle for bonus seconds in the general classification.

Vollering dropped from third to fourth in the GC, with Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) leapfrogging the pre-Tour favourite.

“The one rider that’s dropped down on GC is Demi Vollering,” Rowe said on The Breakaway.

“What was Juliette Labous doing? Why was she attacking? I cannot work this out. In the final, you saw Demi was almost left isolated fighting for those bonus seconds.

“Juliette is not going for the GC, Maeva Squiban was up the road, so the stage victory was not up for grabs, and she left Demi on her own. Now she’s dropped places in the GC and missed out on the opportunity to take second.”

Rowe was baffled by the tactics, as Kim Le Court (AG Insurance–Soudal), who finished third in the stage, tightened her hold on the yellow jersey.

“Well, it wasn’t the right strategy,” Rowe added. “If I was the DS [Directeur Sportif] I wouldn’t be letting her go up the road because Demi Vollering is their protected rider, she’s a favourite coming into this race, and I think she could have done with Juliette Labous in that final to add firepower.

“They had Evita Muzic there, but if they had Juliette Labous as well that gives another team member in front of Demi Vollering to give her a chance of fighting for those seconds on the finish line.

“We’ve talked about the importance of these bonus seconds time and time again, and FDJ-Suez missed on the chance for that today and I think that was down to the move of Labous.”

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‘It’s an amazing feeling’ – Tearful Squiban reflects on ‘special’ win on Stage 6

Video credit: TNT Sports

Speaking alongside Rowe on TNT Sports, Dani Christmas explained that Labous’ move could have put pressure on the other riders, but backfired on FDJ.

“We’ve spoken a lot about how strong that team is when they have four riders in the top 13 in the general classification,” explained Christmas.

“It was also those cards that they could play with multiple riders. If they’re sending riders up the road that are relatively close in the general classification, it puts pressure on the other teams to control that.

“You don’t really want to let a rider of that quality go up the road and gain a lot of time. That could happen if the group just sat back and let her ride off.

“It didn’t work out in the end because she only had a few seconds on the line, but it did still make the other riders work for it as well.”

Stage 7 will see the riders take on another mountain stage as they head from Bourg-en-Bresse to Chambery, with three categorised climbs coming in the final 60km.

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