Tour de France Femmes 2025 - Stage 4: Lichtenberg's preview: The wind as an opponent?

Stage 4 | Tuesday, 29 July 2025 | Saumur - Poitiers | 130.7 kilometres | 748 vertical metres

Claudia Lichtenberg's assessment of the 4th stage

Basically, I expect a similar scenario on the fourth stage as on the third. However, if you look at the map, you can see that: The route runs from north to south and therefore it is quite possible that the wind will blow in here in the west wind zone. What I have now seen on Google Street View: There are rides through open fields which make the whole thing interesting. You have to be careful in crosswinds, but there will probably be a big bunch sprint for the stage win at the end. Nevertheless, you should take a good look at the weather report and the wind forecasts before the stage.

The classification riders have to stay "sharp", i.e. be fully focussed and have the team gathered around them. There are already a few candidates in the peloton like Pauliena Rooijakkers, third overall last year, who can get lost in the wind on stages like this. The task is: don't ride too far back in the peloton, always be alert. Generally speaking, breakaway groups have a harder time in the Tour de France Femmes than in the men's race, considering the length of the route and the length of the tour - because there is less opportunity to make up lost time. That's why women's stage races often remain more compact.

>> The route of the Tour de France Femmes 2025 - all stages at a glance

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Schedule, TV coverage & live stream of stage 4 of the Tour de France Femmes 2025

• Neutral start: 14:35, sharp start 14:45
• Estimated arrival time: between 17:35 and 17:52
• 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.