Project Dijon
Some stage wins are stolen; this one was scheduled. Movistar have been calling stage 4 “Project Dijon” since Christmas — a codename with a wink in it, because Dijon’s most famous export happens to be the exact colour of the jersey they were after. On Tuesday the world time trial champion executed the plan to the letter: Marlen Reusser covered the 21 km around Dijon in 27:30, roughly 45.8 km/h on a course with a sharp little climb at its midpoint and a fast run back into town, and by the evening she was wearing yellow. “I started strongly and rode the climb well,” she said afterwards, with the calm of someone reading from a document drafted eight months ago. “I did have a few small problems with my bike, and the wind also played a part.” It’s the first Tour de France, she admitted, that has really been her goal of the year. You could tell.
Four seconds, and a very expensive afternoon
The nearest anyone got was a surprise: Lieke Nooijen of Visma | Lease a Bike, four seconds down, announcing herself against the clock in a Tour where nobody had her on the shortlist. Demi Vollering took third at 18 seconds — quietly the best GC ride of the day. Because behind them, the race turned over. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, the defending champion, lost more than two minutes in 21 flat kilometres — the kind of deficit you spend a whole Alpine week trying to claw back, conceded before the race has even left the transition stages. And Sigrid Haugset, who spent Monday alone off the front for 85 km to take yellow with a two-minute cushion, gave the whole cushion back and then some. The Norwegian’s fairy tale lasted exactly one day, which is one day longer than most fairy tales get in this sport.
Ferrand-Prévot’s first reaction after the line said as much as the timing sheets did:
The new ledger
So after four stages the general classification reads: Reusser in yellow, Vollering at 14 seconds, Nooijen suddenly a name to track, and Ferrand-Prévot facing the mountains with a two-minute wall to climb. That 14-second gap is the interesting one — Reusser against the clock and Vollering uphill is one of the oldest trades in stage racing, and this Tour just priced it. Everything from here is a negotiation between those two currencies.
For a look at day 4 from inside the race, beyond the timing screens:
In the grupetto
A time trial is the loneliest day in cycling — no wheels to hide behind, no autobus to share the arithmetic, just you and a course and a clock that has never once been sympathetic. Spare a thought for the riders who did their 21 km at threshold knowing the only prize on offer was making the start line tomorrow. In the grupetto’s accounting, they rode exactly as far as Reusser did, into the same wind she complained about, for none of the mustard. That’s the sport.
Moral of the story
Haugset’s 85 km solo bought her one day in yellow; Movistar’s eight-month plan bought Reusser the same jersey with change to spare. The grupetto’s moral: in a time trial, romance pays out daily, but planning compounds. The mountains will have their say — Vollering is 14 seconds away and climbing is her language — but for now the Tour de France Femmes belongs to the woman who named her project after the mustard and then cut it. See you in the hills.
