Paris, July 31 (BNA) Veteran racer Annemeck van Vleuten won the Tour de France for the first time on Sunday after winning the eighth and final stage in style.
The 39-year-old Van Vleuten won the stage by 30 seconds over Dutch national Demi Volering, who also finished the race in second place. Italian rider Silvia Persico came third on the stage, one minute ahead of the winner, by 43 seconds.
In the overall standings, Movistar rider Van Vleuten was 3:48 ahead of Vollering (Team SD Worx) and 6:35 ahead of Polish rider Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) in third.
Van Vleuten had enough energy to cause a delight in the air as he crossed the line after the 123-kilometre (76-mile) mountain stage in the Vosges Mountains in eastern France. It featured a Class I climb, and the second climb was the end-of-stage trek to La Super Planche des Belles Filles, which ended with a 23% grueling gradient.
She entered the final stage by 3:14 seconds over Fullering. In the penultimate stage on Saturday, Van Vleuten climbed up from eighth in the overall standings to take the yellow jersey from Marian Voss with an even more impressive climb in Vosges.
Van Vleuten added this win to his long list of accomplishments, including three Giro d’Italia Femminile titles, an Olympic timed gold, and two World Championship golds in the same discipline.
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