La Course by Le Tour de France, the one-day elite women’s bicycle race, ended in insanely dramatic fashion as Giro Rosa winner Annemiek van Vleuten overcame a seemingly impossible margin to pip Anna van der Breggen to the win in the final metres of the race.
The race took place this morning before stage 10 of the men’s race, and was this year contested only on one stage, from Annecy to Le Grand-Bornand, a 112.5km route in the mountains.
Last year the race was a two-day event, and the organisers have faced criticism for failing to continue to grow it since it first started in 2014, and if this year’s edition was anything, it was a hell of an advert for both women’s cycling, and for turning La Course into the women’s Tour many want.
The commentators, and likely most the viewers, had already crowned Rio Olympic gold medallist van der Breggen as the victor as she rode into the final hundred metres of the race, but fresh off winning at the ten-day Giro Rosa, Annemiek van Vleuten managed to summon some late strength in her legs to beat her Dutch compatriot by a single second to the line.
