Five days in yellow, two stage wins and the green jersey now almost certainly secured, Marianne Vos has achieved ‘more than we could have dreamed of’ at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
After winning into Provins to take the jersey on Monday, Vos has defended her lead all week and Friday ticked off her next aim, winning in yellow.
“It’s the same kind of emotion,” the Jumbo-Visma rider said of her stage 6 win. “Of course a stage victory is something special, but we’ve been aiming for a second with the team and today the opportunity came and we really wanted to try and go for it.
“For us, up front, we were aiming for a stage victory [in this race]. That worked out on Monday already, and now a second one in the yellow jersey is already more than we could have dreamed of, or we could have expected.”
Despite now spending more than half the race in yellow, Vos is realistic about her chances of keeping the jersey much longer, but reluctant to completely write herself off.
“Looking to the profile of tomorrow and Sunday, it’s definitely not my kind of race,” she said. “I’ll try to recover as good as I can to go into the final weekend but for sure there are some really good climbers, the GC riders are targeting this weekend, and we’ll see the other names up front tomorrow.”
After not finishing outside the top five all race, Vos has also all but secured the green jersey. She is 76 points ahead of Lorena Wiebes, a deficit that the DSM rider could only close by winning both remaining stages and both the remaining intermediate sprints, a highly-unlikely prospect given their profiles.
Though the green jersey was not an expressed aim for Vos or the team before the race, it’s something she knew she could achieve alongside her other goals.
“It’s not an accident,” she said about the classification. “We were aiming for stage victories and we knew by doing that, that of course you try to be there up front every day, so aiming for the green jersey is also costing a lot of energy along the way so you want to spend the energy right, and put the focus on the stage victory.
“Of course along the way taking those points, it’s really nice to be in this position in the green jersey classification going into the final weekend.”
Taking home the green jersey will be a welcome bonus for one of the most decorated riders in the peloton, but she is clear that even with two days remaining, her wishes have come true at the return of the Tour de France Femmes.
“Monday already was a very magical moment for me, and now again winning in yellow. There’s not much to wish more for. Going into the final weekend wearing the yellow jersey, it’s actually more than a dream come true.”
