Welcome back to another edition of Pro Log. Here’s a rundown of the latest results before we get started:

  • Tour de France Femmes, Stage 3, Mon 3rd August: 1st Sigrid Haugset, Uno-X Mobility, 4h 05min 59sec; 2nd Lotte Kopecky, SD Worx-Protime, +1min 24sec; 3rd Marianne Vos, Visma-Lease a Bike, +2min 48sec.
  • Tour de Pologne, Stage 1, Mon 3rd August: 1st Jonathan Milan, Lidl-Trek, 5h 04min 11sec; 2nd Paul Magnier, Soudal Quick-Step, +00sec; 3rd Noah Hobbs, EF Education-EasyPost, +00sec.
  • Tour de France Femmes, Stage 2, Sun 2nd August: 1st Lorena Wiebes, SD Worx-Protime, 3h 42min 08sec; 2nd Elisa Balsamo, Lidl-Trek, +00sec; 3rd Marianne Vos, Visma-Lease a Bike, +00sec.
  • Tour of Denmark, Overall, Sun 2nd August: 1st Wout van Aert, Visma-Lease a Bike, 19h 22min 23sec; 2nd Lukáš Kubiš, Unibet Rose Rockers, +21sec; 3rd Henrik Pedersen, Uno-X Mobility, +28sec.

Red Bull partner up with FDJ United-Suez

FDJ United-Suez

Leading women’s team FDJ United-Suez has announced a new partnership with energy drink giant Red Bull as the team’s ‘Major Partner’ and ‘Official Energy Drink Partner’ with riders now sporting the famous Red Bull helmets.

‘This new partnership in women’s cycling, a first for Red Bull with a women’s team, brings together two organisations driven by a shared ambition to raise the standards of professional cycling,’ the team said.

The news follows the team’s signing of American MTB star Kate Courtney, who already had a personal sponsorship with Red Bull.

Tadej Pogačar to ride the Vuelta a España

Xavier Pereyron

Tadej Pogačar will ride the Vuelta a España for the first time since his Grand Tour debut in 2019 when he finished third.

Winning the Vuelta’s red jersey would complete Pogačar’s set of all three Grand Tours, and shouldn’t change his final targets of the season, the World Championships in Canada and Il Lombardia.

There aren’t many races Pogačar is left to add to his palmarès, but this is the biggest one.

Lorena Wiebes and Sigrid Haugset win at Tour de France Femmes

A.S.O./Gaëtan Flamme

Lorena Wiebes kicked off the Tour de France Femmes with two consecutive stage victories, earning her the race’s first yellow jersey.

Stage 1 uphill finish in Lausanne shattered the peloton, but Wiebes held on against puncheurs and GC favourites to power her way to victory ahead of Kim Le Court-Pienaar.

Wiebes’s SD Worx team had to work through their entire squad to claw back Riejanne Markus back on Stage 2, with the peloton eventually swallowing up the Lidl-Trek rider in the final kilometre after Liv AlUla Jayco took over. Wiebes then surfed wheels and found a gap to open her sprint and win by a country mile.

That would be the end of the Dutchwoman’s yellow reign though. Stage 3 began with a Category 1 climb straight from the flag, and it would prove too much for Wiebes and the other sprints, leaving the next maillot jaune wearer to be decided among what remained of the peloton. Uno-X Mobility’s Sigrid Haugset attacked with 88km to go and delivered the ride of her life to hold off Lotte Kopecky and take a memorable stage win and the yellow jersey. She goes into Tuesday’s time-trial with a 2min 2sec GC lead.

Demi Vollering crashes before live coverage begins

A.S.O./Gaëtan Flamme

Shortly after the flag drop on Stage 3 Demi Vollering came down in a crash alongside Puck Pieterse and EF Education-EasyPost riders Noemi Rüegg and World Champion Magdeleine Vallieres.

Thankfully all were able to remount their bikes, with Pieterse going on to claim maximum QoM points in two of the day’s climbs to jump into the lead of the mountains classification.

Wout van Aert delivers free mobile data for fans

Visma-Lease a Bike

Wout van Aert launched his own WVA Mobile phone network alongside Belgian telecom provider Telenet and it’s already proving worthwhile for fans. There are two packages available: the Sprint plan is €13 a month for 20GB of data and unlimited calls and texts, the Monument plan is €35 per month for unlimited data, calls and texts in addition to exclusive content. Customers also get access to ‘exclusive cycling content’ such as behind the scenes footage as well as virtual rides, but the big perk is that every Van Aert victory sees customers rewarded with a free 2GB of data.

Immediately following that announcement, the Belgian made his return to racing at the Tour of Denmark and won three consecutive stages as well as the overall and points classifications. Thanks Wout.

The latest transfers

Xavier Pereyron

The start of August means teams have begun to make official announcements of rider transfers.

Two of the biggest moves so far are Mikel Landa signing for Basque team Euskaltel-Euskadi and Tour de France stage winner Mauro Schmid moving from Jayco AlUla to Pinarello Q36.5.

Meanwhile Alpecin-Premier Tech have been busy, signing the trio of Iván García Cortina, Casper van Uden and Madis Mihkels, and Cofidis have signed Valentin Madouas from Groupama-FDJ United.

There is one immediate transfer, with Victor Langellotti moving from Netcompany Ineos to XDS Astana in order to ride the Vuelta, which starts in his home nation of Monaco later this month. Rumours of a second are emerging though, with Fabio Jakobsen’s contract terminated by Picnic PostNL and Wielerflits reporting that he’s set to sign for Visma-Lease a Bike.