Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) confirmed that she was putting everything into winning the green jersey at the Tour de France Femmes, moving into the points lead after winning the sprint for second place on stage 6 into Morteau.
Distanced on the last climb, Côte des Fins, Vos fought desperately to rejoin the selection on the descent, reconnecting in the final kilometres of the race. But while she was the fastest sprinter in the group, the win went to late-race breakaway rider Cédrine Kerbaol (Ceratizit-WNT).
"It's a shame Cédrine had already opened up a big gap; otherwise, I might have sprinted for the win. Unfortunately, that was beyond my control," Vos spoke to the international media at the finish line in Morteau.
"After the final climb, I was relieved to reconnect with the peloton. I achieved the best possible result today. I really want to bring the green jersey to the finish of the Tour de France Femmes, but first, I need to recover from this gruelling effort."
Charlotte Kool (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) started the stage in the lead of the green jersey points classification with 120 points, Vos in second place with 95 points.
To secure more points, Vos bridged across to the day's breakaway with 87km to go and then won the day's intermediate sprint in Sancey to equal the points tally to Kool.
Although three riders had split off the front of the group in the last climbs, they were caught in the closing kilometres and the select group raced into the Côte des Fins, Juliette Labous (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) launching an attack that reduced the group even further.
Vos was distanced just 500 metres from the top, visibly struggling to regain contact with the leaders.
"I decided to make the crossing and I succeeded. From that moment on it was a struggle. It was really tough," Vos said.
She desperately tried to reconnect with the front group on the descent, doing so just in time to catch her breath and then sprint for the finish line, taking second place and enough points for the green jersey lead.
"Over the last climb, I was happy I could still see the tail end of the peloton and could return to it. That someone was away already; I couldn't do much about it. So the maximum [sprint] points was then the highest achievement possible," Vos said.
Vos now leads the points classification with 145 points, while Kool slipped to second with 120 points. Vos aimed to keep the jersey over the final two mountain stages. If she maintains her lead on Sunday's finale atop Alpe d'Huez, she will win her second green jersey since 2022.
"I don't know if there were many images of me struggling and trying to fight back, but I struggled quite a bit. I was just trying to survive until the finish," Vos said. "I want to defend it, but I am going to recover from this first."
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