German champion Liane Lippert won the second stage of the Tour de France Women in a sprint on Monday in Mauriac in Cantal, where Belgian Lotte Kopecky, second, kept the yellow jersey. At the end of a final run on a wet road and marked by many falls, in particular the spectacular one of the Dutchwoman Eva van Agt who occupied the head of the race, Lippert went up Kopecky narrowly. Italian Silvia Persico took third place.
The Dutch Yara Kastelijn, Anouska Koster and Eva van Agt, who escaped 40 kilometers from Mauriac, were only caught in the final bends of a chaotic end of the race. Van Agt hit a crash barrier heavily on a downhill as she opened up the road. The Dutchwoman from the Jumbo team, conscious and complaining of an arm, was quickly taken care of by a medical team.
The sprinters in the spotlight on Tuesday
Several other competitors also fell but without gravity, like the Dutch Annemiek van Vleuten, victorious in 2022 and favorite to her succession, who found herself on the ground in the ascent of the main difficulty of the day, the Côte des Plaines (second category) 46 km from the line. Left behind on Sunday, the French Juliette Labous, candidate for the final podium, reassured herself by appearing regularly at the forefront, finishing with the best like her compatriot Evita Muzic.
Tuesday, the sprinters could be at the party on a completely flat course in its final part and connecting Collonges-la-Rouge in Corrèze to Montignac-Lascaut in Dordogne in a 147.2 kilometer long stage.