The game of cat and mouse between the two strongest teams in women’s racing gathered pace in the Tour de France Femmes as the race leader, Lotte Kopecky, of Team SD Worx, was outsprinted in Mauriac by the German rider Liane Lippert, of Movistar.
Kopecky’s team, led by Demi Vollering, dominated the first stage in Clermont-Ferrand, but Annemiek van Vleuten’s Movistar responded with Lippert’s first Tour de France success on stage two.
