Norway’s Sigrid Haugset took a stunning win on stage three of the Tour de France Femmes and moved into the overall race lead after a gruelling 88km solo breakaway, the longest solo win in the history of the race.

The 27-year-old was initially part of an 11-rider breakaway before surging clear on her own with more than half the stage to go, and managed to hold off two-time world champion Lotte Kopecky as the Belgian hunted her down in the closing stages.

The gap to SD Worx-Protime’s Kopecky was down to as little as ten seconds at one point but ballooned back out as Uno X-Mobility’s Haugset dug even deeper, and ultimately finished a minute and 24 seconds clear of her pursuer.

Visma-Lease a Bike’s Marianne Vos won a reduced sprint for third place nearly three minutes behind the Norwegian national champion, who is the first Uno-X rider to win a stage at the Tour de France Femmes and first from her nation to lead the general classification.

Haugset looked the picture of suffering as she approached the finish line in Poligny but was able to soak in the moment and wave to fans at the roadside as she cemented the biggest win of her career, and only her second pro win ever, while she also displaced the Netherlands’ Lorena Wiebes in the leader’s yellow jersey.

Asked whether it was a dream come true, she said: “No, because I haven’t been thinking about it, because I never thought it was possible. It’s unreal.

“When I went, I thought yeah, [Kopecky will] catch me. I thought, should I just drop down to her? Second is good! But I kept on. The car was amazing, pushing me. I was thinking about all my teammates and it was like, I had to give it all. I can’t believe she didn’t catch me.

“I was so dizzy at the end. My boyfriend will be angry with me for not celebrating but I couldn’t lift my arms off the bike! It was impossible.”

Haugset now leads Kim Le Court-Pienaar by two minutes and two seconds, with 2023 champion and race favourite Demi Vollering another four seconds back.

Stage three was a hilly, 156.5km run from Geneva to Poligny, largely in the Jura region, with a category one climb to the Col de la Faucille straight out of the gate before a more gently undulating remainder of the stage featuring another three categorised climbs.

The race continues on Tuesday with the fourth of nine stages and the only individual time trial of this year’s race, a 21km ride from Gevrey-Chambertin to Dijon.