Opinion: Annemiek van Vleuten, Demi Vollering, Elisa Longo Borghini favourites on big mountains on Stage 7

Tomorrow women’s racing enters uncharted territory. The three category 1 climbs on Stage 7 of Tour de France Femmes comprise 29.9km (almost a quarter) of the 127.1km, for a total of more than 3000m of ascent. All of it comes in the final 90km.

All after six stages and 782.7km of the most demanding racing many — if not all — of the riders have ever faced. Ad/> It has been designed to be this hard, to push the envelope, to raise the bar and find out who can clear it. Some will.

Some won’t. Next year more should be able to. Tour de France Femmes‘You have to be realistic’ – Vos under no illusions over keeping yellow jerseyYESTERDAY AT 09:49 Starting with Le Petit Ballon, ending with Le Grand, there will be gaps.

Riders will struggle for dear life to hang on. The time limit will be the toughest foe some of them will face all week. Few will be in a position to actually ‘race’.

Those that can will be counted on the fingers of one hand. They will be two Dutch riders and an Italian. Maybe, at a push, a Frenchwoman.

Juliette Labous, though, as rapidly as she is developing, and as impressive it was for her to be the sole survivor on the Passo Maniva a month ago, is realistically not ready to contest such a stage. What seems likely is that it will be between Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar), Demi Vollering (SD Worx) and Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo). One of those riders will likely take not only the stage victory but also pole position ahead of the Super Planche Des Belles Filles on Sunday.

Only the Italian can honestly say she is where she would hope to be at this point in proceedings. Even ELB will probably be wondering if her GC advantage (53 seconds over Van Vleuten, 36 on Vollering) could not be more. TDF Femmes: How to