When Charlotte Kool burst onto the sprinting scene in 2023 for DSM, she was filling the void left by essentially the most serial winner within the girls’s peloton, Lorena Wiebes. But a season and a half since they ended their time as teammates, it’s Kool who has the higher hand, wielding greater than sufficient energy to come back from behind and cross the rider she used to steer out and win stage 2 of the Tour de France Femmes.
On Monday’s opening stage in The Hague, Wiebes’ mechanical within the remaining 500 metres left one thing of a query mark. In Rotterdam on stage 2, nonetheless, there have been no doubts. Kool was full worth for her victory.
For Kool and DSM-Firmenich PostNL, it’s a dash they knew she knew she had in her legs, and a dream she hoped would come true. Back-to-back wins in her house Netherlands have arrived, with a yellow jersey to go together with them.
“Dreams come true fairly quick lately, first yesterday and immediately already on this yellow jersey is absolutely particular,” stated Kool after the end.
“Yesterday was I believe essentially the most particular as a result of the whole lot got here collectively however in fact successful the second stage in a row, within the Netherlands, in a Tour de France is insane.”
For Kool, it was an advanced and long-unknown respiratory drawback that had been plaguing her outcomes, main her to enter the Tour with only one win to her title, a great distance down on the 18 Wiebes had netted earlier than August 12. But Kool had excessive hopes of all of it coming collectively for the massive event.
“This huge objective [of the Tour] all the time saved me going and saved on combating and believing that the one race you need one of the best legs for is the race,” Kool had informed Cyclingnews earlier than the race as she defined how she’d stayed centered whereas not figuring out why she was lacking her prime stage. But maybe she may really feel what was about to occur.
“For me personally, final 12 months, I received in every single place besides on the Tour so possibly this 12 months it will likely be the opposite approach round.”
Kool credited a specialist with turning issues round, albeit on the final gasp, with two weeks to go till the beginning of the Tour. “I lastly really feel like myself once more,” she stated of the problems in her stage 1 press convention. Tuesday’s stage was additional affirmation that she was again to her peak type.
“I felt yesterday my dash was so good and it’s again the place it must be,” stated Kool as she described the end to reporters. “I knew simply do the identical as yesterday, be actually affected person and simply launch,”
Wiebes hit the entrance earliest after a textbook leadout from SD Worx-Protime, seeking to bounce again from the frustration of stage 1 the place a success from behind and rear derailleur disappearance left her in tears on the line. But Kool saved calm, swapping positions from after they was once teammates to tug out of her slipstream for victory. Perhaps girls’s sprinting has a brand new prime canine.
Get limitless entry to all of our protection of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes – together with breaking information and evaluation reported by our journalists on the bottom from each stage because it occurs and extra. Find out extra.