Switzerland’s Marlen Reusser took the first yellow jersey of her career by winning a 21km time trial from Gevrey-Chambertin to Dijon in the fourth stage of the Tour de France Femmes.
The time trial world champion, 34, completed the course in 27 minutes and 30 seconds, ending the day with a 14-second lead over Demi Vollering after the Dutchwoman was third in the trial.
Reusser beat Netherlands rider Lieke Nooijen’s formidable target by four seconds, while 21-year-old Briton Zoe Backstedt, a junior world champion in this discipline, was 20 seconds behind the leader and finished fourth in the only time trial of her debut tour.
Having started the day in yellow, Norway’s Sigrid Haugset struggled after Monday’s stunning solo breakaway and is now fourth overall after finishing three minutes behind Reusser.
As riders withstood temperatures over 30 degrees Celsius in eastern France, defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot also struggled and the French native lost two minutes and 14 seconds to Reusser.
Reusser, a favourite to win the time trial, admitted that she and her team had been eyeing up this fourth stage for a while.
“Of course, I’m super, super happy,” she said.
“This was the idea that we had since a long time – my goal of the year.
“I knew we were going to start in Switzerland on the Swiss national day, and we’re going to have a time trial as the fourth day.
“We’ve been talking about it for a long time, Project Dijon, for the yellow colour of the mustard! To win the time trial and maybe take yellow. It worked out.
“Always it’s hard and you know it’s not necessarily going to happen so, that it happened like this? Super happy!”