Pauline Ferrand-Prevot came to defend her Tour de France Femmes title and is five minutes down after five stages. Marlen Reusser has the yellow jersey, Demi Vollering is twelve seconds behind her, and the race the whole spring pointed towards has turned into something nobody predicted. We go through how it happened, and why nothing about Ferrand-Prevot's week looks like the rider who dominated this race in 2025.
Before that, the first week did everything the men's Tour did and more. Lorena Wiebes won the first two stages and was untouchable in both, to the point where the interesting question became why anyone is still chasing down breakaways to set up a sprint against her. Then Sigrid Ytterhus Haugset rode 88 kilometres alone to win in Poligny and take yellow, with Lotte Kopecky chasing her all the way to second place. It was the best move of the race so far, and the television coverage started after she had already gone, which we have plenty to say about. Reusser took the jersey back in the Dijon time trial, then Vollering won a finish that went to the line on stage 5. Twelve riders have already abandoned, one team is down to three, and the peloton is racing in the high thirties.
On the men's side, Remco Evenepoel has now won the Donostia San Sebastian Klasikoa four times from four starts. A bike change left him nearly forty seconds down on the Erlaitz, and he still rode back to the front and dropped everyone but Richard Carapaz. Jonathan Milan has won the first three stages of the Tour de Pologne, which gets us onto what that race keeps doing with its finish design. Matthew Brennan and Oscar Onley have taken a stage each at the Vuelta a Burgos, and Onley's is his first win for Netcompany-Ineos.
We also get into the things underneath the results. Two Belgian development teams have disappeared in two seasons. Women's cycling is arguing about whether it needs a bigger calendar. Nine UAE riders are not going to a Grand Tour this year and have won ten races between them. And we still cannot work out what Fabio Jakobsen would be doing at Visma.
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