Since March it’s been known that Demi Vollering would leave SD Worx-Protime at the end of 2024, after four successful years with the Dutch team that included wins in all three Ardennes Classics, the Tour de France Femmes, the Vuelta a España and more.
From the moment Danny Stam, SD Worx-Protime’s Director Sportif dropped the news while Vollering was mid-Dwars door Vlaanderen, the world has wondered: but where will she go?
FDJ-Suez answered the question on Monday when they announced the 2023 Tour winner would join the French team on a two-year deal.
A move for the ages
It’s not every year a top-tier rider leaves SD Worx-Protime, in fact, the only time their best riders leave the team is to retire, and in some cases, like that of Anna van der Breggen, they even remain with the team as a director. For this reason, Vollering’s exit was puzzling at first, but after months of clear discontent within the team, especially at the Tour de France Femmes in August, a move away seemed to be the best choice for both Vollering and the team.
During the Spring campaign, Vollering seemed to be racing solo, and there were times when the triple-Ardennes winner was either racing against her teammates or racing alongside them. The situation was exacerbated at the Vuelta, but the Tour proved the relationship between Vollering and the team that built her had gone bad.
The second-best ranked rider in the world at the end of 2024, Vollering is one of the biggest gets in cycling for any team. For this reason, it would make sense for SD Worx-Protime to want to keep her. But when the yellow jersey hit the ground during stage 5 of the Tour and none of her teammates responded immediately, despite either being in the crash with Vollering or admitting to seeing their leader on the ground, that was the moment it was clear SD Worx-Protime and Vollering could no longer work together.
Come 2025 the Vuelta winner will be racing against her former team, the team she joined as a fresh-faced youngster in 2021 with only three years of racing under her belt.
Normally, SD Worx-Protime only loses riders when they either do not fit the structure of the team or when their form has started to dip. As the best team in the world, when it comes to results, it’s a team that most riders would want to be a part of, yet Vollering is choosing to leave. As is Niamh Fisher-Black and Marlen Reusser. Three riders at the top of their game. It will make 2025 a lot more interesting, that’s for sure, to have talent more evenly distributed amongst the teams.
Mentor vs. Mentee
To make the situation even more fascinating, Vollering will line up in 2025 against Anna van der Breggen, her mentor and former coach. Van der Breggen took Vollering under her wing in 2021. The two almost immediately became a force to be reckoned with, by the Ardennes Vollering was acting as Van der Breggen’s key teammate in decisive moments at La Flèche Wallonne. Van der Breggen returned the favour with a 10 km lead out into the finish of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Vollering’s first big win.
When Van der Breggen retired at the end of 2021 she slotted into the car and started coaching Vollering. The partnership led to many of Vollering’s best wins in 2022 and 2023.
But the car didn’t fit Van der Breggen like the bike, and the former world champion announced she would be re-joining the peloton for SD Worx-Protime in 2025.
Whether the prospect of sharing leadership with a legend like Van der Breggen, when Vollering has arguably matched her-end-of-career fitness level, is unknown, but there can only be one true leader of a team at the Tour de France Femmes, and there’s no question Van der Breggen likes the idea of a yellow jersey on her walls at home.
Supporting a champion
Vollering leaving SD Worx-Protime was the first part of the puzzle, the second was which team she would join. There were rumours of UAE Team ADQ and Lidl-Trek, but rumblings of a move to FDJ-Suez picked up before the Olympics this summer.
On the one hand, it’s hard to imagine any team being able to support Vollering like SD Worx-Protime has, on the other hand, any team could probably do a better job than SD Worx-Protime did this year. Still, a champion of Vollering’s calibre only seems to fit the Dutch team. That is until FDJ-Suez started to announce their roster for 2025.
Célia Gery, Eglantine Rayer, and Ally Wollaston are just three of the exciting riders joining FDJ-Suez come January. The two most impactful signings for the news of Vollering’s arrival are Elise Chabbey and Juliette Labous. Chabbey has been Kasia Niewiadoma’s right-hand woman for four years. Niewiadoma proved herself to be Vollering’s top rival at the Tour this year, and even though Chabbey crashed earlier in the race and wasn’t there in the critical final stages, the Swiss woman’s strength over the years has been a deciding factor in many of Canyon-SRAM’s successes. Labous is another GC rival of Vollering’s, now-turned teammate. How the team will manage the two plus their long-time star Evita Muzic is another conversation, but harness the climbing power of those three and Vollering will rarely be without support in the high mountains.
The French team has made no secret of their aim to win the Tour. Their ambition for the event started before it was a multi-day race, back when it was only La Course by the Tour de France. It is no coincidence the team announced Vollering’s contract the day before the 2025 Tour route is to be revealed.
So as soon as the 2023 Tour winner was on the market, they would have swooped in with everything they had to secure her.
There will be growing pains as Vollering adjusts to a new team environment and new teammates. The Dutch mentality is much different to that of the French, and learning to work with a (nearly) whole new team of people will be a challenge, but Vollering will have one familiar face at team camp.
FDJ-Suez already announced the addition of Lars Boom as sports director for the team. Boom had already joined the French team in October after two years with SD Worx-Protime.
Between Boom, who knows Vollering from working with her for two years, their new signings, their existing talent and their overwhelming passion for the Tour, FDJ-Suez and Vollering have all the makings of a successful yellow jersey campaign in 2025.
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