After two stages given over to the sprinters, the battle for the yellow jersey began in earnest Tuesday afternoon on the second half of an unusual split-stage day, as defending Tour de France Femmes champion Demi Vollering crushed a short, 6.3 km individual time trial to take the win and the race lead.
After DSM Firmenich-PostNL’s Charlotte Kool took her second straight stage win in the morning session, the Dutch sprinter held a 14-second lead to her closest pursuer and 20 seconds on the field. But even on a short course that took most riders less than eight and a half minutes to complete, that wouldn’t be enough. Vollering’s time – some five seconds ahead of the next-closest rider, Chloé Dygert – was far and away best on the day and puts her in the lead by three seconds over teammate Lorena Wiebes. Dygert is in third.
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How it happened
- The Tour’s double-stage day made for a hectic affair for riders and teams to manage the logistics and fueling and recovery elements. Riders had to scramble to do post-stage 2 recovery and then course recon in a compressed 30-minute window and then either ramp up for a fast turnaround or sit and wait for hours. Compounding the nerves was the chance of rain, which blessedly held off and left the course dry.
- All eyes were on FDJ-Suez’s Grace Brown, but the Olympic time trial champion had an untimely flat tire that killed her chances for the win; her second-half split – the third-fastest of any rider – offered a tantalizing bit of what-if had she not had a mechanical. Instead, it was her teammate, Loes Adegeest, who set the early fast time.
- As it was, it fell to World Champion Dygert (Canyon-SRAM) to go better. But in a nod to the short course and tall competition, she was a scant .17 seconds faster at the finish, and Olympic road teammate Kristen Faulkner (EF-Oatly-Cannondale) and young French hope Cedrine Kerbaol (Ceratizit-WNT) were also within one second in a tightly stacked results sheet.
- Ultimately, the only rider who could go better was Vollering. The SD Worx-Protime leader went through the intermediate time check with the same time – to the hundredth of a second – as Dygert, but her final few kilometers were absolutely blistering as she railed corners, tire slipping on a paint stripe at one point. It was a high-risk approach, but it paid off with a five-second win over Dygert and a coveted yellow jersey.
Actually, I had the whole time tomorrow already in the head, because tomorrow’s stage I really love. After [this morning’s] race, until the TT, I slept two times. I was so relaxed, I did two times a power nap.
Vollering, who was surprised to take the win
Brief analysis
- Despite possessing some solid TT chops, Vollering seemed genuinely surprised at her victory, at least on such a short course. “And here I had no expectations at all. I mean, I was not thinking even of the podium,” she said. “I really thought it was something for the sprinters today and for the power time triallists.” That included riders like Dygert and Kristen Faulkner, both freshly minted Olympic gold medalists in the team pursuit as well as Olympic gold and silver TT medalists Brown and Anna Henderson (Visma-Lease a Bike).
- Given that she said she was already looking forward to a hilly stage 4, that says something about where her form is at. Vollering noted that the plan wasn’t to take yellow until later in the week, but if there’s any team that can defend a lead in a race like the TdFF, it’s SD Worx. Even without the versatile Marlen Reusser, SD Worx has a powerful roster and, in Christine Majerus, the most experienced road captain in the peloton.
- For her part, EF’s Faulkner set herself up nicely for possible yellow. The Olympic road race champion isn’t likely to contend on the high-mountain finishes later this week, but Wednesday and Thursday’s Classics-style courses suit her perfectly, and at just six seconds back, she’s in striking distance of the race lead.
- Keep an eye on Kerbaol. Last year’s best young rider, she’s stepping it up a notch so far in the 2024 edition with a solid fourth on the stage and sixth overall in the current GC standings.
Up next
After two flat, fast days of racing, the Tour gets into the hills with a 122.7 km stage in Ardennes country. The race starts in Valkenburg, home to the Amstel Gold Race, and finishes in Liège, home of course to Liège-Bastogne-Liège. It will take in climbs from both events, and the finish in particular is a near carbon-copy of the Monument, featuring climbs of the Côte de la Redoute, Côte des Forges, and Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons.
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