Following on from her win on the Champs Elysées late July, Hosking powered away uphill from Lotto Soudal's Elise Delzenne (Lotto Soudal) and Roxane Fournie (Futuroscope) in the 102km stage from Saint Sauveur to Nevers.
With the Qatar Road World Championships on the horizon in early October, sprint wins will instill the Canberran sprinter with confidence.
“It was an uphill drag for maybe the last 200 metres,” Hosking said.
“Sarah Roy [Orica-BikeExchange] must have jumped away with about 300 metres to go, and she had a bit of a gap on me and the Futuroscope girl. I was watching, watching, until I just thought ‘I’d better go now,’ and I went quite early again. I closed the gap to Sarah, then came round her.
“My partner said it was a close finish, but I don’t think it was! Delzenne was on my wheel, so I had plenty of time to put my hands in the air!”
Hosking's trade team mates are helping out with her largely personal world championship goal, going into the stage today with Hosking as the protected rider.
“It was a bit of a crazy stage actually,” Hosking said. “There were a lot of crashes, so both Amy Pieters and I came down in a crash with just over 20km to go. But Amy got back up quickly – better than me a little bit – and I just made my way back, and was probably back in the peloton with 20km to go.
“Then the girls did a really fantastic job putting me in position for the sprint.”
“I’m really proud of how we rode today. Nobody was missing; Mayuko [Hagiwara] was there in the beginning, and Amy Roberts and Lucy [Garner]; they really rose to the occasion today. Then Dani [King] is also having a great race.
“So it was a really, really good team effort, and I was happy to be able to pull it off in the finish.”
The stage win was a bonus for the team with Amy Pieters retaining the overall race lead.
Australia's Sarah Roy is second on the overall classification.
