Sigrid Haugset starts stage four of the 2026 Tour de France Femmes in the yellow jersey, two minutes and two seconds clear of her nearest rival — a gap she carved out single-handedly the day before.

On Monday's stage three, from Genève to Poligny, Haugset rode clear of the peloton (the main pack of riders) and stayed away for more than 90 kilometres alone. Nobody caught her. She crossed the line to win the stage; the race's biggest favourites rolled in nearly three minutes behind. Among them: reigning Tour champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot and Demi Vollering, co-favourites who found themselves watching the overall lead disappear up the road.

Now the race turns to Dijon. Stage four is a 21-kilometre individual time trial from Gevrey-Chambertin to Dijon, run on Tuesday 4 August — riders start one by one against the clock rather than in a group. The first rider rolls down the start ramp at 14:34 local time; the last finisher is expected at 17:55. The course is not flat. It gains 255 metres of elevation, and halfway through the route a two-kilometre climb tests whether a rider can push a big gear uphill while already at full effort. The fastest time-triallists are those who judge their pace so they reach the finish with nothing left in the tank.

For Haugset, the arithmetic is simple but steep. She leads the general classification — the overall standings, decided by total elapsed time across every stage — at 11 hours, 17 minutes and 56 seconds. Behind her, the chase is tightly bunched. Kim Le Court sits second at 2:02. Vollering is third at 2:06. Niamh Ruegg and Marianne Vos — five-time stage winner across previous editions and one of the most decorated riders in the women's peloton — are fourth and fifth, both at 2:10. A further cluster of heavy hitters occupies positions six through ten, all at 2:10: Cedrine Kerbaol, Elisa Longo Borghini, Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney, Puck Pieterse and Ferrand-Prévot.

That means nine riders are within eight seconds of each other, all chasing Haugset. A time trial rewards raw power and pacing discipline over tactics — there is no wheel to sit on, no team-mate to shelter behind. Every second won or lost is earned entirely by the rider alone on the road.

The broader race still has a long way to run. This year's Tour de France Femmes covers 1,174.7 kilometres across nine stages, having started in Switzerland on 1 August with a stage in Lausanne. After Dijon, the race heads south through the Beaujolais and the Rhône Valley before a summit finish on Mont Ventoux on stage seven and a final weekend around Nice on 8–9 August.

In the other jersey competitions after stage three: Lorena Wiebes leads the points classification with 111, Puck Pieterse tops the mountains classification with 18, and P. Blasi Cairol leads the young rider classification. Team SD Worx-Protime heads the team standings.

For fans, the appeal of stage four is its clarity. No breakaways to chase, no lead-out trains to decode. Just each rider, a bike, and the clock — one at a time, from the wine villages of Gevrey-Chambertin to the streets of Dijon.