Charlotte Kool claimed a home win in the opening stage of the Tour de France Femmes as she outsprinted the field in The Hague.

The 25-year-old from Blaricum, who rides for Team dsm-firmenich PostNL, took the leader’s yellow jersey with the bonus seconds she earned with her win, giving her a four-second lead over Finland’s Anniina Ahtosalo.

Another Dutch favourite for the stage win, Lorena Wiebes, fell out of contention when her chain came off in the closing metres. Demi Vollering, the overall winner of last year’s race, finished safely in the leading pack in 35th place.

Olympic road race silver medallist Marianne Vos finished fifth, while Mylène de Zoete, who rode through her home town of Naaldwijk during the stage, was seventh.

“This is the day I’d always hoped for,” said Kool, who struggled with health problems earlier in the season. “Never give up. It was a long way out, but my coach said I could do a long sprint easily. I kept fighting and it was enough.”

The curtain-raiser for the seven-stage race took the riders from Rotterdam through Westland before a 21-kilometre circuit of The Hague, finishing with a short climb in the dunes of Kijkduin.

Italian Cristina Tonetti built up a 45-second lead with an early breakaway and led through the Maas-Delta tunnel to claim the polka dot jersey for the best climber, before the field came back together for the expected bunch sprint.

With two more flat stages on Tuesday in Deventer and Rotterdam, Tonetti is guaranteed to keep the Queen of the Mountains jersey at least until Wednesday.

On Wednesday the riders will set out from Valkenburg before crossing the border to Liège in Belgium, while the last two stages take the race into the Alps, finishing on Alpe d’Huez where Vollering is expected to make her bid for victory.