Chloe Hosking sprints to La Course victory on Champs Élysées

Australia’s Chloe Hosking finally broke the Rabo-Liv Dutch stranglehold on La Course, sprinting to a brilliant victory on the Champs Élysées. With temperatures touching 30C, the weather was in stark contrast to last year’s deluge and the Wiggle High5 rider made the most of it, putting her head down and simply bulldozing her way to the line in a sprint finish worthy of Mark Cavendish.

In the absence of Britain’s Lizzie Armitstead and the world tour leader Megan Guarnier, it was wide open although Marianne Vos started favourite and her Rabo-Liv team were active throughout the 13-laps. Her French team‑mate Pauline Ferrand-Prevot was a fixture on the front of the peloton throughout in a race that was attacking and aggressive from the off.

This is the first time La Course has been part of the new UCI Women’s World Tour and Armitstead’s Boels Dolmans team has dominated. But Armitstead’s focus is already elsewhere. After crashing out of La Course in 2014 and withdrawing from this year’s Giro Rosa with illness, the British rider is taking no chances with her Olympic buildup. “Going into Rio, I want gold, I would be disappointed with anything else,” she said last week. So it was left to riders such as Hannah Barnes [Canyon-SRAM] and Dani King of Wiggle High5 to fly the flag, with King putting in a stinging if fruitless attack over the closing laps.

The UK national champion Barnes showed off her jersey early on, getting into a break that formed after three laps and included the strong all-rounder Chantal Blaak (Rabo-Liv). But with a maximum lead of 18sec the move was always destined to fail as the peloton, riding at speeds of around 60kmh, inexorably reeled the breakaways back in.

The action was fast and furious, ridden in the characteristic spirit of women’s cycling where smaller team sizes contribute to open and attacking racing. But the heat and a strong headwind inhibited the formation of any really threatening breakaway move, with riders content to attack for the sprint points available at every passage over the finish line. Nina Kessler of Lensworld-Zannata took the green jersey with Barnes in eighth.

The 121 riders, grouped into 21 teams, streamed round the finishing circuit of the Tour de France on a glorious Parisian afternoon – a ribbon of colour illuminating such landmarks as the Arc de Triomphe, the Tuileries and the Champs Élysées where Chris Froome was later crowned a three-times Tour de France champion. Though the course itself is hardly challenging – bar a slight drag on each passage of the Champs Élysées and the uneven cobbles – this is essentially a city centre criterium course and it is the symbolism of riding on one of the greatest stages in world sport that is important.

A late break looked as if it might stick, driven by the Dutch rider Lucinda Brand (Rabo-Liv) who jumped on to the wheel of France’s Eugénie Duval before powering away. She was joined by Amy Pieters (Wiggle High5) and the American Lauren Stephens (Team Tibco) and for a while over the closing kilometres it looked like a Dutchwoman would again take the win. Even when the move was reeled back in over the final 3km Dutch hopes were kept alive by Ellen van Dijk who put in a trademark last gasp attack to go clear under the flamme rouge.

But it was Hosking’s day, after her Wiggle High5 team rode a near perfect race. Launching her sprint 300m from the line, the Australian put her head down and simply rode away from Finland’s Lotta Lepisto and Marianne Vos – the Dutchwoman resurgent after being sidelined for the 2015 season. After her three stage wins at Thüringen Rundfahrt, Vos will be reassured by her performance here with barely two weeks to Rio.

Hosking clasped her face in disbelief before raising her arms in victory. She is the first Australian winner on the Champs Élysées since Robbie McEwen in 2002 and won in similarly dominating fashion. “Van Dijk took a flier and I was jumping from train to train. With 300m to go I thought, ‘This is way too early,’ and I was waiting for them to come, and waiting for them to come but they didn’t come.”

Afterwards, she was quick to thank her team, giving particular praise to Britain’s Amy Roberts and Audrey Cordon though the Frenchwoman’s race ended in one of the bruising crashes that marred the final two laps. After celebrating with her family, a clearly elated Hosking said: “We never gave up and my team protected me and put me in position. I’m so lucky.”

This is the Australian’s fourth world tour win after her overall victory in the Tour of Chongming Island in what has been a breakout season. It caps a fantastic month in which she took her first stage at the Giro Rosa. Vos used her Instagram account to thank La Course for a “great day” in Paris and to praise the winner: “Not only a fantastic sprint, but also good selfie skills.” She will be hoping for better than third in Rio with a repeat of her epic 2012 tussle with Armitstead very much on the cards.