Annemieke van Vleuten (Movistar) lost a valuable 8 seconds in her "first test" against Demi Vollaring (SD Worx) on the hilly course to Rodez, stage 4 of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

The defending champion explained that she had ridden too fast on the 13% uphill climb of 600m to the finish, and then stalled as Vollaring pulled away by a narrow margin to take second place behind lone winner Jara Castellaine (Phoenix-Desseuninck).

"Today was a day to test each other," said De Seuninck.

"Demi and I were at each other's limits. In the final, she timed me at the finish. I started a little too early. I thought it would be a little shorter. I'm not happy that I lost some seconds at the finish, but it wasn't that much."

At 177.1 km from Cahors to Rodez, the longest stage for women in the Tour de France has five mountain sections, starting with the Craisac and Falgueras passes, and is the first test for the overall classification riders.

A 14-man breakaway group emerged early in the race, at one point gaining more than 10 minutes, with Frenchwoman Audrey Cordon-Lago (Human Powered Health), who started 2:21 behind yellow jersey winner Lotte Kopecky (SD Works), taking the de facto lead

The Côte de Colombie, Côte de Moirées, and the Côte de Lavergne continued through narrow, tree-lined roads until just before the final 10 km when they entered the climb of the Lodée.

With SD Walks cutting the gap to the breakaway in half, the overall battle heated up behind the big breakaway group, but attacks began on the last two climbs, and a select group emerged, including Voerling and Van Hulten.

With the group breaking apart, Kopecký attacked alone, defending his race lead from final stage winner Castellaine and securing a good position to help Vollering at the top.

Van Vleuten made his first big attack on the Côte de La Verne, catching and passing Kopecky, but struggled to hold onto Vollering's wheel on the final climb to Lodé. On the final climb, both riders sprinted up the steep gradient toward the finish, but Van Vleuten was again unable to get a handle on Vollering.

Vollering was only a few seconds behind, but he passed all but one of the first breakaway riders to move into second place.

"The goal was to be safe and the team and everyone was there.

"We knew it was a beautiful final. We did some scouting. The climbs weren't too steep. It was a hard final, but we had a good setup and a good plan with the team. I'm proud."

Van Vleuten and Vollaring face off as the two overwhelming favorites to win this year's Tour de France femme, with the most important stage being stage 7, which climbs the Aspin Pass and finishes at the top of the Tourmalet Pass.

Asked how he felt after his first test with Vollering and before the more important climbs to come, van Breuten replied. I'm glad the team plan worked out. It was also a pretty tricky downhill, so I attacked a little bit to play it safe. It's better to attack yourself than to be surprised by another rider, and it feels good. 0]

Van Vleuten recognized Kopecky, who currently leads the race ahead of Vollering, as well as Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl Trek), Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon SRAM), Ashley Moolman Passio (AG Insurance Soudal-Quickstep), along with others, recognized the riders who are in contention for the overall by 51 seconds.

"There is a really good level," said Van Vleuten, who also praised SD Walks for its success in the opening stage of the Tour de France Femme, but said he hopes more teams will respond positively to the dominant Dutch team during the eight-day race.

"It's good to be able to fight with more teams," he said. Ultimately, I'm always amazed at how some teams help SD Vokes win.

"I want to say this out loud to SD Volks because they are good at poker. Maybe we should play them instead of watching them all the time. It's smarter that way."