Hallo from the Netherlands! Loren, Matilda Price and I are on the ground in Rotterdam following the women’s Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift this week. We’ve already made two podcasts, written a handful of stories, and eaten zero croissants (that can wait for Thursday).
Wheel Talk
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Two days in and the Tour has already produced some amazing surprises. How many people thought Charlotte Kool would beat Lorena Wiebes not just once but twice?! The first stage ended in tears for Wiebes, after a controversial mechanical as she started her sprint, but Kool won against the rest of the peloton by a country mile, aka a few bike lengths. Kool backed up her win on Tuesday morning by outsprinting Wiebes to take a second stage victory in as many days.
Matilda and I have been hard at work writing for Escape Collective. Here’s what we’ve got from the first two days, in case you missed it.
On Tour de France Femmes debut, Puck Pieterse is already a jewel in the Dutch crown by Matilda Price
What will Movistar do without Annemiek van Vleuten? by me
Kool and the gang: How Charlotte and DSM made a Tour de France dream come true by me
The Dutch women are racing on home soil, Demi Vollering is racing at home by me
Wrote this Tuesday morning, not knowing Vollering would stand on the podium a few hours later.
The battle between Wiebes and Kool is on by me
Was the Tour de France Femmes’ first foreign Grand Depart a success? by Matilda Price
And from the home team…
Two stages in one day? The why and how of the split stage at the Tour de France Femmes by Dane Cash
Four weeks of planning: How TdFF’s teams optimise for a double-stage day by Ronan Mc Laughlin
And finally, take a look at this bike.
Grace Brown’s golden Lapierre time trial bike by Ronan again
Racing continues…
At the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift!
The Basics:
From Monday, August 12 to Sunday, August 18
Live coverage: 🇺🇸 Peacock/NBC, 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 Eurosport/Discovery+ 🇳🇿 SBS, 🇨🇦 FloBikes
Wheel Talk Podcast
All week we will be putting together daily podcasts for you all after each day of the Tour de France Femmes, featuring audio diaries from riders in the peloton like Amanda Spratt (Lidl-Trek), Noemi Rüegg (EF-Oatly-Cannondale), Léa Curinier (FDJ-Suez), Qunity Ton (Liv AlUla Jayco), Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal), Niamh Fisher-Black (SD Worx-Protime), and Emma Norsgaard (Movistar).
Subscribe to the Wheel Talk Podcast everywhere podcasts are found and follow along as we try to make sense of the biggest race on the women’s calendar!
Let’s Discuss
Demi Vollering is already in yellow.
As of Tuesday evening, the yellow jersey is already on the shoulders of Demi Vollering, after she won the stage 3 time trial. But there are a lot of kilometres to cover and a lot that can happen. Vollering will enjoy wearing yellow for (maybe) more than one day. She only was able to pull on yellow on the seventh stage last year, and wore it for the time trial only. So, wearing the jersey in a road stage will be a new experience for the Dutchwoman.
“I really didn’t see this coming,” Vollering said after the race. “I had no idea I could do this today, so I am really surprised actually.”
Vollering was visibly emotional at the finish, understandably. A win so early in the week wasn’t something she was expecting, no matter how much she would have wanted to win on home roads, the first three days were in theory not for her; they were for the sprinters and the time trial specialists.
“These first days were just days I needed to survive, I wanted to enjoy these first days, I had the whole time tomorrow in the head because tomorrow’s stage I really love. I really like Liège-Bastogne-Liège so I was today in the road race thinking of tomorrow,” Vollering said.
“After the race until the ITT I slept two times I was so relaxed. I really didn’t see this coming.”
Last year, Vollering took a backseat while her teammate Lotte Kopecky held the yellow jersey for the first seven stages of the race. It wasn’t on her to make a move until the queen stage on the Col du Tourmalet.
“Last year [the Col du] Tourmalet was the stage I needed to do it, here I had no expectations at all, I was not even thinking of the podium,” Vollering said. “I really thought it was something for the sprinters today and the powerful time trialists. Then Anna [van der Breggen] said to me it’s really a course for you, and I was like ‘Ya, ya’.”
Even if she wasn’t expecting it, she’s gone and won a stage already on Tuesday, in the Netherlands, and will wear the yellow jersey on Wednesday’s stage from Valkenburg to Liège.
“It’s up to the other teams to take the yellow jersey from our team now, and it’s nice that I have it but we will try our best to defend it to the end. The plan was to take a little later in the week.”
After the race Vollering’s teammate Wiebes was thrilled to find Vollering had taken yellow. Wiebes had been only 14 seconds down on the yellow jersey going into the time trial and would have worn yellow if not for Vollering. She laughed as she said she was excited to defend the jersey tomorrow.
Wiebes now sits second overall, three seconds behind her teammate, with Chloe Dygert in third overall, five seconds down.
While some teams might not want the pressure of defending the lead from the second day, but SD Worx-Protime will be more than happy to take the front seat of the race. Vollering’s top GC rival after the time trial is Riejanne Markus, 12 seconds down. Third-place overall finisher in 2023 Kasia Niewiadoma lost 30 seconds in the battle for yellow.
Last year’s Best Young Rider Cédrine Kerbaol had an incredible day finishing fourth on the stage and moving into sixth overall, five seconds down.
A picture worth a couple of words
The Grubers are at the Tour de France Femmes for the first time ever! With the last two years taking place just after the men’s it was too much for the two to do both (understandably!), but the gap between the men’s race and this women’s allowed them to be on the ground this year. Yay!
Taylor Swift
Matilda Price’s favourite Taylor Swift song, in case you all were wondering.
Until next time!
Phew! I’ll be back next week when we’ve wrapped the Tour, but for now, you can find me on the ground chasing riders around or hunting for the best macarons. Thanks for reading!
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