With the strength she displayed not only in the stage 3 time trial but also earlier in the season at La Vuelta España Femenina and Tour de Suisse, Demi Vollering winning stage 4 was a definite possibility. The stage looked hard enough to go to the GC hopefuls and – notably – the defending Tour de France Femmes champion said after what she called a surprising win in the time trial that the fourth stage, on her beloved Ardennes Classics terrain, was the one she eagerly awaited.
So when Canyon-SRAM’s Kasia Niewiadoma attacked on Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons with 13 km to go and Vollering responded, that was where the rest of the GC riders needed to be. Unfortunately, they weren’t. It was only the Fenix-Deceuninck duo of Puck Pieterse and Pauliena Rooijakkers who could follow.
As the four – eventually three after Rooijakkers was distanced – rode away, the other riders tapped to feature in the overall come Saturday and Sunday’s mountain stages found themselves losing time to the yellow jersey, and what looked like a small margin after the Tuesday time trial grew into a gap that will be hard to overcome.
One rider who lost significant time was also the yellow jersey hopeful who, other than Vollering herself, faired best in the time trial. Riejanne Markus (Visma-Lease a Bike) was the first of the general classification riders to get dropped, relatively early on. The Dutch national time trial champion lost 1:33 by the finish line. Were we not halfway through the race, a gap of nearly two minutes with the time she lost in the time trial wouldn’t sound like the end of her bid for yellow, but the race is half complete. Markus will have a hard time finding those minutes in the coming days, especially with Vollering on the form she is on. The podium is still within reach but other GC riders were looking far better on Wednesday.
Cédrine Kerbaol, who won last year’s Best Young Rider classification, lost 1:04 on the stage after only losing five seconds to Vollering in the time trial and dropped into ninth overall. It’s still a respectable place to be for the Ceratizit-WNT rider, but she’s now potentially out of podium contention with riders like Niewiadoma and DSM Firmenich-PostNL’s Juliette Labous ahead in the standings.
Lidl-Trek perhaps had the second-worst losses behind Markus and Visma-Lease a Bike. Both of the team’s GC possibilities, Shirin van Anrooij and Gaia Realini, finished 29 seconds down on the stage. Realini, who went into the stage as the team’s A-favourite for the overall, now sits 1:44 behind Vollering ahead of stage 5. Van Anrooij is a bit ahead, in 10th place at 1:07 down.
A few riders will be pleased with where they sit overall after four stages, none more so than Niewiadoma, for whom very short time trials like Tuesday’s are not a strength. Her move with Vollering and Pieterse put her into third overall, at 34 seconds behind Vollering. Niewiadoma finished third overall in both 2022 and 2023 and will be looking to do at least one better – if she doesn’t leave the race in yellow – and she’s already closer to achieving that than she was a year ago. The course on Wednesday was a good one for her; she excels at the short, steep climbs. Vollering herself said after Wednesday’s stage that the GC was now between herself and Niewiadoma.
The news wasn’t so good for Niewiadoma’s teammate Neve Bradbury, who finished third overall at the Giro d’Italia Women in July; she lost over three minutes on Wednesday, putting her over four minutes down on Vollering in the general classification.
In second overall, Pieterse will start the fifth stage in the white Youth Classification jersey, something she said was her goal from the beginning. The Tour is Pieterse’s first stage race ever, so how she will be feeling by the time the race reaches the mountains is unknown. But the Dutch youngster is a phenomenal rider, and her limits are unknown at this point. Even if she doesn’t feature in the GC overall come Sunday, her teammate Rooijakkers sits sixth overall, 1:03 down. The Dutch rider is a strong climber and finished fourth at the Giro.
Olympic road race champion Kristen Faulkner will start stage five in fourth overall, 47 seconds behind Vollering. It’s a great place to be for the American, who may struggle on the longer climbs of the final stages but could remain in the top five GC for the end of the race.
The two French hopefuls who came to the race as leaders for their respective teams both lost time in the fourth stage. Labous is the higher in fifth overall, 56 seconds down. Évita Muzic, after losing more time in the time trial, now sits 1:21 behind Vollering. Both riders finished in the first chase behind Vollering.
The general classification definitely isn’t over, but Vollering is getting progressively further away from almost everyone else in the field. The last thing any rider wants is to have to make up time on Vollering – the best climber in the peloton – in the high mountains, but every GC hopeful is already at a deficit. With two more stages before the weekend, what can anyone do to break away from Vollering’s lead?
We saw one possible clue on stage 4: when Fenix-Deceuninck was putting pressure on the race, Vollering was left momentarily with only two teammates. There are cracks within the usually dominant SD Worx-Protime team; what everyone else needs to do is find them. The question is: will it even matter, when you’re racing against someone as strong as Vollering?
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