On a day of mixed fortunes for SD Worx-Protime, Blanka Vas won stage 5 of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift but her teammate Demi Vollering lost the yellow jersey to Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) after going down in a dramatic crash with some 6 km to go.
Everything appeared to be heading towards a straightforward sprint finish in Amnéville when disaster struck as riders rounded a bend in the road, with Vollering one of several riders crashing hard. Vas and Niewiadoma remained upright and pressed on to the finish in a small group of survivors that caught the remnants of the early break, while Vollering gingerly remounted and then went into chase mode.
On the finishing straight, Vas sprinted to the stage victory ahead of Niewiadoma and Liane Lippert (Movistar). Although she had to settle for runner-up honors on the day, Niewiadoma’s ride propelled her into yellow, as Vollering arrived 1:47 down. The defending champ now sits in ninth overall, 1:19 down on Niewiadoma.
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How it happened
- The rolling hills in the profile made it uncertain as to whether a break might take stage 5, and there was plenty of interest in going off the front, with several attacks and regroupings throughout the first half of the day. The longest lasting move would prove to be that of Loes Adegeest (FDJ Suez), Fem van Empel (Visma-Lease a Bike), and Julie van de Velde (AG Insurance-Soudal). Adegeest spurred the move with an attack some 70 km out, and the other two riders bridged up to her.
- The trio spent more than an hour off the front, but the bunch did not give them much breathing room, with Movistar putting in a lot of work to close the move down. A catch seemed imminent when, with around 6 km to go, disaster struck in the peloton, as a rider crashed rounding a bend, causing a domino effect that brought several more riders down. Vollering and Pfeiffer Georgi (DSM-Firmenich-PostNL) were among those hitting the deck hard in the pile-up.
- The crashed opened up several splits in the peloton, with Vas, Niewiadoma, and Lippert among a handful of riders who had emerged unscathed and pressed on in pursuit of the breakaway survivors, with Canyon-SRAM’s Chloé Dygert providing much of the firepower. Adegeest attacked in an attempt to stay clear, but the escapees were all caught in the finale. Behind, a scraped-up Vollering chased, alone at first and then joined by a few others.
- Niewiadoma tried to surge away from the lead group as the road angled upward with a kilometer to go, but Lippert and her Movistar teammate Emma Norsgaard were immediately onto her wheel. Then it was Kristen Faulkner (EF-Oatly-Cannondale) who tried an attack inside the last several hundred meters. Vas countered and sprinted clear from the rest of the group to take the win.
In the final, I was like, ‘I cannot let Faulkner go,’ because I made the same mistake at the Olympics.
—Blanka Vas
Brief analysis
- SD Worx did plenty of work to keep the stage under control, only to see chaos unfold due to the crash. In the aftermath of the fall, Vollering spent more time alone than might be expected for the overnight leader and overall favorite. Vas said afterward that her radio was not working, but Lorena Wiebes also raced on, ultimately sprinting across the line for eighth place at the front of the bunch.
- A day after her bid for glory in Liège came up short, Niewiadoma again found herself in a small group making a seemingly inevitable attack that did not produce the desired result. On the bright side, at least, she now leads the race with a substantial gap to the other GC specialists.
- Given how dominant she has shown she can be in the high mountains, Vollering may still well reclaim the race lead in the days to come, but it remains to be seen how the injuries she sustained in the crash will affect her. She did not look comfortable in the first few minutes after hitting the deck, and although she settled into a rhythm to chase the leaders, falling clearly left a mark.
Up next
The intriguing sixth stage the Tour de France Femmes runs 159.2 km from Remiremont to Morteau and features some moderately difficult but not overly brutal climbs along the way. We could see a bit of GC action in the finale with two categorized climbs in the last 30 km, but a flat finish could favor someone with a strong kick out of a small group.
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