Tour de France Femmes 2025 - Stage 3: Lichtenberg's preview: A day for the sprinters

Stage 3 | Monday, 28 July 2025 | La Gacilly - Angers | 163.5 kilometres | 1050 vertical metres

Claudia Lichtenberg's assessment of the 3rd stage

The third stage looks flat. It's definitely a day for the sprinters. I think that the real, true, pure sprinters will have a hard time on the first two stages and will therefore work towards the third and fourth day. That in turn will make it difficult for breakaway groups. But there will definitely be this battle between breakaway groups and sprinter teams. And unfortunately, we know from the past that the sprinter teams can very often prevail.

I think Lorena Wiebes and Charlotte Kool are the two big favourites on stages like this. What other female cyclist can say that she can beat one of them without too much luck? In fact, women's cycling is limited in the number of top female sprinters compared to the men. And yet, of course, outsiders can expect to have a certain chance in the final sprint. For example, if the timing of the sprint of one of the favourites simply doesn't fit well or their sprint train doesn't work so well because the team has already had to take on so much responsibility and invest so much energy in the chase during the stage.

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Schedule, TV coverage & live stream of stage 3 of the Tour de France Femmes 2025

• Neutral start: 13:50, sharp start 13:55
• Estimated arrival time: between 17:33 and 17:54
• TV broadcast: Eurosport 1 15:15-18:15
• Live stream: ARD-Mediathek, sportschau.de, Discovery Plus (for a fee)

TOUR expert Claudia Lichtenberg

She was one of the best tour specialists in German cycling - at a time when there was no Tour de France for women. Claudia Lichtenberg won the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de l'Aude in 2009 under her maiden name Häusler, the toughest stage races in women's cycling at the time. Alongside her job as a racing cyclist, she completed a degree in mechanical engineering. Today, the 39-year-old from Munich works as an engineer and, together with her husband Christian, comments on women's races on the Discovery+/Eurosport platforms.