{"id":199213,"date":"2025-07-29T10:18:37","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T10:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=199213"},"modified":"2025-07-29T10:19:32","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T10:19:32","slug":"tdffaz-short-on-favourites-as-reusser-and-longo-borghini-abandon-and-vollering-crashes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2025\/07\/29\/tdffaz-short-on-favourites-as-reusser-and-longo-borghini-abandon-and-vollering-crashes\/","title":{"rendered":"TdFFaZ Short on Favourites as Reusser and Longo Borghini Abandon and Vollering Crashes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first three stages of the 2025 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift (TdFFaZ) have seen favorites abandon, crash or announce injuries, much of this carnage related to the Giro d\u2019Italia Women, which ended only two weeks before the TdFFaZ began.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Favorites dropping like flies<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The first top favourite to succumb was Movistar leader Marlen Reusser, who had suffered from diarrhoea in the Giro but recovered enough to finish second in that race to Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ<\/a>). But she fell ill from what sounded like a case of food poisoning just days before the start of the TdFFaZ. \u201cI ate something that made me vomit during one night, and I’m not in a good place again,\u201d she said<\/a>. \u201cIt’s very annoying at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was dropped early on Saturday\u2019s short stage 1, 78.8km from Vannes to\u00a0Plumelec in the western department of Brittany, and abandoned the race after she\u2019d pedaled 63km. There was also bad news from SD Worx\u2013Protime leader and world champion Lotte Kopecky, who said that she was still suffering from the effects of the back injury that had forced her to drop out of the Giro and would be pursuing stage wins, rather than the yellow jersey. Then Giro winner Longo Borghini dropped out before the start of stage 3 because of an intestinal virus.<\/p>\n

That certainly scrambled the race and explained why the UCI rescheduled the Giro next year to put more time between the two Grand Tours. I\u2019m still wondering who thought it was a good idea to have only two weeks before the Grand Tours. Did no one at the UCI think this might have a negative effect on the biggest women\u2019s race on the calendar? Well, it has certainly diminished the race and thrown the spotlight on other GC riders who might give odds-on favourite Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) something of a battle for the big prize.<\/p>\n

Except that Vollering crashed heavily near the end of Monday\u2019s stage 3, when at least a dozen riders hit the asphalt in a narrow curve about 3.5 km from the finish line. Several other top riders went down in the crash, including Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek), Chlo\u00e9 Dygert (Canyon\/\/SRAM-zondacrypto) and Letizia Paternoster (Liv AlUla Jayco). None of the fallen riders lost any time due to the crash occurring within the final 5 km of the finish line.<\/p>\n

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Zobrazit p\u0159\u00edsp\u011bvek na Instagramu<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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P\u0159\u00edsp\u011bvek sd\u00edlen\u00fd Le Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift (@letourfemmes)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n