With 177.1 km plus an 8.3-kilometre neutral zone before the real start, stage 4 of the Tour de France Femmes was the longest race in the history of the Women's WorldTour. And instead of the GC favourites fighting for the stage win on the steep finishing climb into Rodez, Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Deceuninck) could celebrate her first road victory after a solo attack.
Kastelijn took off from a 14-rider breakaway when her companions began to falter on the second-category climb of the Côte de Moyrazès, 20 kilometres from the line. At the winner's press conference, Kastelijn thanked her teammate Marthe Truyen and the team staff for making her stage-winning attack possible.
"I think this was the longest ride I ever did. I never ride 180 kilometres because if I had to do that in training it's just boring and I don't like that. Today it was just about trying to save energy, to eat and drink as much as possible because that can make a difference in the final. Our sports director and our performance coaches make a plan for that every day, I just had to stick to the plan. I think that's the reason I had energy enough in the final," Kastelijn explained.
When Kastelijn and Truyen joined the breakaway on the first climb of the day, the stage win was very far from their minds. Instead, they wanted to defend the mountain jersey that had been in the team since stage 2 – but this plan soon changed.
"We just wanted to take some points for the mountain jersey, and I was really happy that Marthe was with me. I'm not explosive enough to beat the other girls, and then they gave us so many minutes. Because I had my teammate with me, I didn't have to push the whole day and could save my legs. On the last two climbs, she told me, OK, now it's on you, just go. Marthe put in a lot of work today, I am really proud that we have this victory, I didn't take it alone, we did it with the whole team," she said.
Kastelijn made her move on the Côte de Moyrazès, the penultimate classified climb, riding hard from the bottom of the 4.6-kilometre ascent and slowly but surely pulling away from the rest of the group. Only Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Human Powered Health) tried to follow her but had to let the Dutchwoman go halfway up the climb.
"I started by just going to the front of the group, trying to speed up a bit, I didn't actually do a real attack. Only when we were with two, I attacked again. When I was alone, it was just a TT to the finish line, staying focused and riding as hard as possible. And the final metres were just amazing," Kastelijn described the final.
Her victory was the first time in the modern Tour de France Femmes that a rider from an early breakaway won the stage. The size of the breakaway and the length of the stage as well as the eight-day race played a role in this.
"We were quite a big group today, with almost every team in it. Some teams were there with two riders, and they all worked together really well. I also think that it was fine for the peloton to just let us go because the stage was so long. And it's actually really hard to race all-out for eight days," the stage winner explained the dynamic on the stage.
For several years, Kastelijn was best known as a cyclocross rider, finishing fifth in the World Championships for three years in a row from 2020 to 2022. But ahead of the 2023 season, she and her coach decided to switch things around. She had a consistent spring season with a tenth place in the Flèche Wallonne as her highlight, but a road victory had eluded the 25-year-old until now.
"We changed the plan a bit to focus more on the road because I showed last year that I am a good road cyclist. I was a bit annoyed after the Spring Classics because I was always there but never finished it off. To then take a victory now, it's crazy and incredible."
The victory was made even more special by the fact that Kastelijn's family were ready to welcome her at the finish.
"My mum and dad are here the whole week, and my brother will come next week. My family is everything for me, so I am really happy that they are here and I can celebrate this with them," Kastelijn finished.
