Thalita de Jong (Lotto Dstny Ladies) won the opening stage at the Tour de l'Ardeche, beating runner-up Karolina Perekitko (Winspace) by one second at the finish line in Beauchastel. Debora Silvestri (Laboral Kutxa - Fundación Euskadi) finished third on the day.
A 15-rider breakaway emerged early in the day's 88km race from Saint-Fortunat-sur-Eyrieux to Beauchastel, but the field regrouped at the 28km mark.
A new breakaway emerged over the category 1 climb: Col de la Mûre, which included De Jong, Perekitko and Silvestri, along with Valentina Cavallar and Lotte Claes (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Monica Trinca Colonel (Bepink-Bongioanni) and Marion Bunel (St Michel-Mavic-Auber93).
The eight riders led the race with a 2:30 gap over a reduced chasing field of 19, and they pushed their lead out to 3:30 into the last climb and final descent into Beauchastel where De Jong took the stage victory.
De Jong now leads the overall classification by one second, heading into stage 2 on Wednesday.
Results
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