(Liège) Dutchwoman Puck Pieterse won the 4th race in a three-way sprinte stage of the women’s Tour de France by winning ahead of her compatriot Demi Vollering and the Polish Katarzyna Niewiadoma, Wednesday in Liège.
Vollering, winner of the 3e stage Tuesday in Rotterdam, kept his yellow jersey at the end of a race which took in several difficulties from the Amstel Gold Race and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Pieterse, 22, a mountain bike and cyclo-cross specialist, achieved his first professional success on the road.
The young prodigy of the Fenix-Deceuninck team managed to follow the two favorites of the Tour, Vollering and Niewiadoma, in the last difficulty of the day, the terrible Roche-aux-Faucons hill and its 14% passages 13 kilometers from the line.
Quebecer Olivia Baril took the 43e rank.
The French Juliette Labous, Evita Muzic and Cédrine Kerbaol, candidates for the podium, were unable to keep up, but still limited the gaps by finishing around thirty seconds behind Pieterse.
In the general classification, Vollering has a 22-second lead over the winner of the day and a 34-second lead over Niewiadoma. Labous is fifth, 56 seconds behind, while Kerbaol, who wore the white jersey for the best young rider last year, is in 9th place.e position at 1 min 04 sec.
On Thursday, the peloton will arrive in France at Amnéville for the fifth stage from Bastogne in the Belgian Ardennes. A final opportunity for the sprinters to shine before tackling the climbs of the Jura, Vosges and Alps massifs from Friday to Sunday.