{"id":309878,"date":"2025-08-01T18:07:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T18:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/309878\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T18:07:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T18:07:11","slug":"tour-de-france-femmes-squiban-sends-home-fans-wild-with-second-stage-win-tour-de-france-femmes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/309878\/","title":{"rendered":"Tour de France Femmes: Squiban sends home fans wild with second stage win | Tour de France Femmes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ma\u00ebva Squiban fuelled joyous scenes in the Haute-Savoie, winning the first high mountain stage of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes in Chamb\u00e9ry, just 24 hours after taking victory in stage six<\/a> in Ambert.<\/p>\n

The French rider, who celebrated draped in a Breton flag, was part of a 13-rider breakaway which splintered on the first climb, the C\u00f4te de Saint-Franc and then gradually dwindled as the gradients started to bite.<\/p>\n

Squiban, a former French junior champion when 15 years old, finally shed her last companion, Mareille Meijering, 2km from the top of the Col du Granier and accelerated clear alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the start, I made a joke about attacking again,\u201d she admitted, \u201cbut in the end it wasn\u2019t a joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the fast descent of the Granier, overlooking Chamb\u00e9ry, Squiban, nudging 80km\/h on the narrow road, again held off the pursuing group of race favourites, including the defending champion Kasia Niewiadoma and rival Demi Vollering, to take back-to-back stage wins.<\/p>\n

Further down the Granier, Kim Le Court\u2019s time in yellow appeared to have come to an end when the group of favourites picked up the pace, and her closest rival, France\u2019s Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot, briefly became race leader on the road.<\/p>\n

But Le Court was saved by her fearless descending. The Mauritian did not panic and her dogged pursuit of the group containing Niewiadoma, Vollering and Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot paid off when she rejoined them close to the finish.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I almost died a few times on the descent,\u201d Le Court said. \u201cThe last 4km of the uphill were difficult. My body just completely shut off.<\/p>\n

Kim Le Court breathes a sigh of relief after recovering to retain the yellow jersey. Photograph: Julien de Rosa\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Once I got to the top, I knew I had to do the best downhill of my life to try and come back. I did a recon of the descent a few weeks ago so I knew what was coming, and I just had to go full gas. I think I went 10 times faster than the recon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, on the eve of the toughest mountain stage in the race, Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot\u2019s drastic weight loss was the subject of some scrutiny after images of her racing jersey, pinned at the sleeve so it didn\u2019t hang loosely, emerged in the Dutch media.<\/p>\n

The debate has been fuelled by comments made by French rider C\u00e9drine Kerbaol who, alarmed by the weight loss among her peers, told French media: \u201cWe\u2019re in a dangerous moment. There are a lot of people that have won big races with very low weight, and young girls, who are trying to perform, will take them as an example. What\u2019s happening is not great.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTop-level sport is extreme in every way,\u201d Rutger Tijssen, sport technical manager at Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot\u2019s Visma-Lease a Bike team, told Sporza.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, when the women\u2019s peloton will tackle both the 13km-long Col de Plainpalais and, later, a summit finish on the \u201cbeyond category\u201d Col de la Madeleine \u2013 an 18.6km climb to 2,000 metres \u2013 power-to-weight ratios will be pivotal.<\/p>\n

\u201cPauline\u2019s leaner than in the spring,\u201d Tijssen said, \u201cbut this also requires different things when you have to climb the Col de la Madeleine. Then it\u2019s logical that you adapt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot won the Olympic mountain bike title at Paris 2024 but has since devoted herself to road racing with the goal of winning the Tour de France Femmes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s not much leaner than she was a year ago,\u201d Tijssen said. \u201cOf course, she stays healthy. You know what\u2019s happening and you make choices, which we monitor.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next 48 hours will decide the outcome of the race, which includes summit finishes on the Madeleine and at Ch\u00e2tel, as well as the daunting climb of the Col de Joux Plane on Sunday. Only 35 seconds currently separate the top five in the overall standings, but with more than 6,000 metres of climbing still to come, those gaps are certain to widen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ma\u00ebva Squiban fuelled joyous scenes in the Haute-Savoie, winning the first high mountain stage of the 2025 Tour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-309878","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114954845852643141","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}