Le Court-Pienaar's solo on Stage 3 did two things at once: it denied Wiebes a third consecutive win and handed her the race lead by 26 seconds over Liane Lippert. Wiebes, despite losing on the climb, limited her losses well enough to stay within 35 seconds — which made Stage 4's 138 km from Llanidloes to Hay-on-Wye with 2,500 m of climbing her last realistic shot at reshaping the general classification, not completing a hat-trick.