Kool wins Tour de France Femmes opening stage

Dutch rider Charlotte Kool surged to win stage one of the Tour de France Femmes in a bunch sprint finish in The Hague.

DSM-Firmenich PostNL’s Kool kicked clear with around 100m to go and held off the chasers to claim the first leader’s yellow jersey of the eight-stage race.

Finland’s Anniina Ahtosalo of Uno-X finished second, with Italian Elisa Balsamo of Lidl Trek in third.

Pre-stage favourite Lorena Wiebes sustained a dropped chain with 200m remaining and could not contest the finish.

“It was really hectic but I like it. I kept on thinking, ‘OK I like hectic, I like chaos’,” said Kool, 25.

“I went so early and I thought it’s too long and it hurt so bad but it was enough in the end.”

Stage one was a 124km flat run from Rotterdam to The Hague in the Netherlands, with this the first time the race, in its third edition, has started outside France.

A huge crash in the middle of the peloton at 69km to go brought dozens of riders to a halt but no rider was seriously hurt.

Despite a frantic run-in to the line, Wiebes looked ideally placed on the wheel of lead-out rider Barbara Guarischi.

But her chain problem forced her to sit up and Kool followed Guarischi before launching out of her slipstream as the Italian looked round to see Wiebes had drifted back.

Defending champion Demi Vollering had a relatively easy day and finished safely in the bunch.

The race continues in the Netherlands with two stages both taking place on Tuesday.

The riders face a 67km flat course from Dordrecht to Rotterdam in the morning before a 6.3km individual time trial in Rotterdam in the afternoon.

The Tour then moves from the Netherlands into Belgium on Wednesday before finally arriving in France on Thursday, with the final stage taking place on Sunday.