Tour de France Femmes 2024: Pieterse pips Vollering to stage four win in Liège – as it happened

That’s the lot for today, thank you for reading and emailing in, and congratulations to Puck Pieterse of Fenix-Deceuninck on a superb win, especially after she missed out on a cross-country mountain bike medal at the Olympics. We’ll have a race report coming up soon and will be back for more live blogging fun tomorrow. Bye.

Tomorrow’s stage five is 152.5km long, between Bastogne and Amnéville, with over 2,000m of climbing in five categorised climbs and plenty of uncategorised ones. Amnéville is actually in France, which seems fitting, as we’re now halfway through the eight-stage race.

Top 5 GC after stage four

Top 10 on stage four

“When you win you always say the plan was working,” the Fenix–Deceuninck sports director, Michel Cornelisse, tells Eurosport. “But today we executed our plan.”

“It means a lot. We had some bad luck in the beginning of the season. But we always believed in the team.

“It was the plan. A lot of times the plan is not working. But not today. I’m a very proud sports director. I think the car is a bit damaged on the inside [due to their celebrations]. I think it’s more than one bottle of champagne [to celebrate with] … but we try for more.”

“It’s quite unbelievable,” says Pieterse. “The last few days I had really good legs. Today I did not feel my legs at all. To take a win here against Demi, it’s a dream come true.

“I knew they [Niewiadoma and Vollering] were riding for GC. I knew Kasia would attack, and Demi would have to follow. I just tried to keep a poker face. I went quite early. I haven’t been here before – and I didn’t know where the finish line was.”

“I worked up so much to the Olympic Games. When you have good legs there, you have good legs here.”

The winning moment for Pieterse.

Puck Pieterse wins stage four!

I think perhaps Pieterse just held on for the win. Vollering, the race leader and reigning champion, was coming on strong though.

Photo finish between Pieterse and Vollering!

500m to go: Niewiadoma attacks!

2km to go: The leading trio power towards the final sprint. Vollering (SD Worx–Protime) must be feeling confident of another stage win because she looks fearsomely strong.

5.5km to go: Pieterse took five points on the last climb, which was a category two. Niewiadoma, Vollering and Rooijakkers took three, two and one respectively. As a result Pieterse leads the QOM competition by a point from Persico, 10 points to nine.

6.5km to go: The front three have 29sec. Given their ability it would be a big surprise if they don’t make up the final podium for today.

8km to go: Vollering, Niewiadoma and Pieterse are now out front on their own after Rooijakkers was dropped. They are holding nothing back and flying around the corners despite the treacherously wet conditions.

9.5km to go: Now there’ll be a long downhill section before the road flattens out before the finish in Liege.

10km to go: Indeed the top three for the bonus seconds (six, four and two) were Vollering, Niewiadoma and Pieterse.

10.5km to go: It looked like Vollering won the bonus seconds. That isn’t going to hurt her chances of winning the GC. Niewiadoma was second I think, will confirm.

11km to go: There’s a sprint coming up for some bonifications.

12km to go: The race has broken into pieces and as expected we’ll see some very significant time gaps today.

13km to go: Ghekiere is caught. Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon–SRAM) is right up there in a four-rider group at the front now. Vollering is there. Fenix–Deceuninck teammates Pieterse and Roojiakkers are also there. A big strategic advantage for them to have two riders in this newly formed four-rider group.

13.5km to go: Vollering, setting the pace at the front of the lead group, is demonstrating how strong she is. She is putting pressure on her companions and making sure the pace is high enough that no one can attack.

14km to go: Up front, Ghekiere is still leading, and the gap is 24sec. This is the final, nasty climb of the day for the riders. Eight out of eight nearly completed …

16km to go: Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ–Suez) has crashed on the descent but it didn’t look to be a particularly bad one, she is back on the bike. Now she is stopping for a bike change.

17km to go: Ghekiere is tucked behind her handlebars and turning the biggest gear possible down the descent.

18km to go: Ghekiere is going all out for this stage win. She has 17sec. This is a dangerous situation for the bunch chasing behind because there is so much pressure on the riders to produce a result for their team. And the roads are soaking wet.

22km to go: Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance–Soudal–Quick-Step) nabs the points on the Côte des Forges and then takes her opportunity to attack solo. She quickly builds a gap of 17sec.

25km to go: Here comes the Côte des Forges. The racing is stressful and hectic. There is a group of three riders – Koch, Brown and Vas – behind the front group.

29km to go: Rain has reappeared. It’s chucking it down in fact, but the good news for the riders is that the fastest descents of the day have already been negotiated. We have a big group of 96 riders up front. Wiebes and Deignan, notably, are both in the group behind (the third on the road) nearly 2min down.

30km to go: The race has splintered into five groups. There are 86 riders up front and Vollering, of course, has not missed the cut.

32km to go: The Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons, the final climb of the day, is a beast. It has an average gradient of 10.2% and is 1.26km long … and that is going to hurt after 100km plus of one-day Classics style racing.

34km to go: Vollering, in yellow, is prominent up at the front, and there is a fierce fight occurring on the sixth climb of the day.

35km to go: The front group is battling up the Côte de la Redoute. They may have had a brief bit of respite earlier, following Martin’s solo attack, but overall this has been a punishing stage for every rider in the pack.

36km to go: The front group contains 98 riders. The group behind contains Wiebes – she is with 14 other riders – and the third and final group has 11 riders in it.

38km to go: To give an idea of how hectic today has been overall, the fastest time schedule on the official website banked on an average speed of 35km/h. The current average speed is 38.5km/h.

42km to go: The favourites’ teams are now massed at the front and the pace and intensity has picked up in readiness for the final. There is now a very fast descent down to the foot of the Côte de la Redoute, the sixth categorised climb of the day.

“The atmosphere is crazy … it’s so much fun,” says Slappendel on Eurosport from that next climb.

Thankfully the roads are looking dryer now which will make this descent somewhat less treacherous.

47km to go: Martin blew up on the climb, by the way, and was caught in double quick time by the chasing pack. Yara Kastelijn (Credishop–Fristads) has attacked off the front after taking maximum points on Mont-Theux.

48km to go: The final kilometre of this climb kicks up significantly, to something more like 8%, and you can see the effort it’s requiring from the riders.

49km to go: The gap for Martin is 53sec. She is on the fifth categorised climb, Mont-Theux, which is 2.8km long, at an average gradient of 5.6%.

51.5km to go: A closed level crossing intervenes! Martin, the lone breakaway rider, is forced to stop with a train due to pass by. The train appears, the gates open, and Martin races off – with the peloton obliged to wait by race organisers until the previous gap is restored.

Intermediate sprint result

59km to go: Kool, Wiebes and Vos contest an all-out sprint on the wet roads of Pepinster – and Kool takes 20 points for placing second behind Martin, the lone escapee.

56km to go: There’s been a crash (I think) and it seems like two Canyon–SRAM riders, including Chloe Dygert, have hit the deck. They are trying to get back to the bunch. Neve Bradbury is the other rider involved. Both seem to be OK, thankfully.

57km to go: “The first two stages were covered in full by FranceTelevisions, it is true, and Laurent Jalabert is commentating,” emails George, in response to Jeremy’s email earlier.

”However, from the time trial yesterday to stage 7 on Saturday, they are only covering the last two hours or so of racing; with the last three hours or so on Sunday.

“Also, Thomas Voeckler is not one of the commentators on this tour; his place has been taken by Marion Hérault-Garnier.”

There you have it.

61km to go: “The roads are shit,” observes Slappendel on the Eurosport bike.

The former pro rider also mentions that it’s hectic in the peloton, even if the pace isn’t that high just at the moment.