Charlotte Kool 7th in Montignac-Lascaux sprint finish

A deceptively challenging day saw Team dsm-firmenich work well as a group, helping to catch the attacking Van de Velde in sight of the line, where Charlotte Kool got up to take seventh place despite not being able to fully open up her sprint.

Rolling out from Collonges-la-Rouge on Tuesday afternoon, lumpy terrain awaited the peloton with several short but punchy categorised and uncategorised climbs littering the route. Setting out with a plan, Team dsm-firmenich helped to control any dangerous moves and cover any big groups, looking to set up a sprint with finisher Charlotte Kool. With the early breakaway caught Van de Velde attacked and she would put up a valiant fight out front, forcing a hard chase from Léa Curinier and Megan Jastrab at the head of the bunch. Van de Velde still led by 20 seconds coming under two kilometres to go with Juliette Labous helping at the front of the peloton before Pfeiffer Georgi took over who pulled back the gap and positioned Kool towards the front. In sight of the finish line Kool looked to find some space and open up her sprint on the barrier side but she was never able to get enough room and had to settle for seventh place at the line.

A reflective Kool said: “We wanted to go for the win today, and the team has full trust in me to finish it off in a sprint and we wanted to take our own opportunity, that’s why we worked when some other teams didn’t. In the end I’m really disappointed actually. We went a bit early but that was the plan and I came round the last corner in a perfect position, but I let myself get surprised from the back as the others started the sprint. Then there was no room and I was kind of blocked with nowhere to go, so it’s just a missed opportunity.”

Team dsm-firmenich coach Kelvin Dekker added: “We took our responsibility when we had to. It was at a point where we said that we really had to go, liked we talked about this morning and in the weeks before already. Megan took a pretty big hit on the first day so we had to adapt our lead out. We still did as we had planned, and Juliette also jumped in to fill some of the gaps and did that in a good way. I think in the last kilometre we made some mistakes, we maybe brought Charlotte to the front on her own too early. She was in an okay position but then got swamped by some of the riders that came from behind, and then couldn’t really sprint which is a shame. We came here to win, so in the end of course it’s disappointing but we will continue to fight and there are more opportunities for us later in the week.”