This time last week, Blanka Vas was at a low ebb. She’d felt the sting of fourth place in the Olympics – the dreaded non-medalling position – for the second time in as many Games, this time coming even closer in the road race than she had in the cross-country mountain bike event in Tokyo three years prior.
Fast forward to today, and the 22-year-old is on top of the world. She’s added Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift stage victory to her wins at the Giro d’Italia and Tour de Suisse, and done it in front of some of the sport’s biggest stars, including the rider who took the gold she was chasing under the Eiffel Tower just 11 days ago.
In the moment, Vas’ win may have been slightly overshadowed by the shambles unfolding behind her for SD Worx-Protime teammate and race leader Demi Vollering, but make no mistake, this was a special win for a special rider, and one fueled by so many near misses.
“The first two days after the Olympics, I couldn’t really sleep,” Vas revealed in her post-race press conference, with tears in her eyes from the emotion, and trembles in her voice from the occasion. When you come fourth, you don’t have to do a press conference about it.
“At one point we were racing for the victory with Marianne [Vos], and in the end I came home without a medal, so it was hard.”
Vas was really the unhappiest rider at the culmination of the road race in Paris, not just because it happened – missing a medal – but because it happened again. This isn’t even the second time Vas has taken an agonising fourth in a major objective.
The first was Tokyo, in the mountain bike race. Behind the Swiss podium wash, it was a 19-year-old Vas that brought home the rest of the field. A few months later, it happened again, as the fresh SD Worx recruit sprinted to third behind Elisa Balsamo, Marianne Vos and Kasia Niewiadoma at the Road World Championships in Leuven, Belgium. For a young rider, those were big, name-making results, but for a rider who knows she’s a winner, they were difficult to take each time.
When it happened in Paris, though, Vas quickly learnt the lessons she needed to learn, and on Thursday, just 300 km east of the spot where Kristen Faulkner took gold and Vos and Lotte Kopecky swept up the other medals, the Hungarian put everything into practice.
“I tried to remember it for the good things, because I was racing for the victory and I was with the strongest riders, so it gave me a lot of confidence,” she said of how she had been reflecting on the Games.
The presence of Faulkner in the group that went to the line in Amnéville could have been a frightening reminder for Vas, but in reality, being fresh off the receiving end of a Faulkner masterclass gave her an extra edge in the finale.
“I think it helped me to this Tour de France victory, because in the final I knew we could not let Faulkner go,” she said. “She is super strong. If you leave a gap, for sure she will be there.”
Riding for a team like SD Worx, it would be easy to imagine that Vas fits into their mould: preternaturally talented, full of self-belief, almost brash with confidence. The first, she definitely has. The third, it’s just not in her nature. The Hungarian is a quiet, unassuming character, still timid in front of the press, and keen to let her riding do the talking. Next to a Lorena Wiebes on the road or a Puck Pieterse on the mountain bike, Vas is low-key, understated.
The second point, though – that self-belief – is what’s coming for Vas. Whilst Paris and her other so-close moments may have felt like defeat, what they’ve done is remind her, as well as the world, of what she is capable of.
“In the sprint, I was very, very tired but I reminded myself that I can do it,” she said. “The Olympics was in my head; it does give me a lot of energy.”
Though we may not always remember who finished fourth in the Paris Olympics road race, that’s not what matters for Vas anymore. The quick learning, the budding confidence and clearly powerful legs are what’s going to make her SD Worx-Protime’s next star. She’s got her stage winner’s medal, and surely more hardware is now on the way.
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