Lorena Wiebes (SD Works Pro Time) held on to her hopes of winning the opening stage of the Tour de France Femmes and taking the yellow jersey in her home country, but contact and mechanical problems with 500m to go brought an abrupt end to her sprinting contest in The Hague.

An unfortunate collision with Anniina Ahtzalo (Uno X Mobility) in the final sprint broke Vives' derailleur. With the chain dragging loose on the ground, she was forced to stand up and after slowly riding the rest of the distance, fell to the ground while her teammates did what they could to comfort the devastated sprinter.

“The chain and everything was off the inside of the bike and I could see that someone had run into her rear wheel. Because the chain was off, she couldn't sprint and had to stand still,” Vollering told Cycling News at the finish line.

Misha Bredewald was part of the final leadout as Vollering, Blank Vath, and Niamh Fischer-Black tried to figure out what happened in the final sprint after a perfect leadout on the straight with 3km to go to the finish, wrapped her arms around a distraught Wiebes. [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...]

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