After winning La Vuelta Femenina, Itzulia Women and Vuelta a Burgos Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) added another stage race to her running tally for the 2024 season. The Dutch champion won three of the four Tour de Suisse stages, including the stage 2 time trial, to win the overall by 1:28 over Canyon-SRAM’s Neve Bradbury. Bradbury was able to walk away with her first professional win after taking the second stage victory hand-in-hand with her teammate Kasia Niewiadoma. The Australian just edged out Lidl-Trek’s Elisa Longo Borghini for the runner-up spot by two seconds overall.
How it happened
- The first stage was short but brutal, broken up into half climbing and half descending. So it should have surprised no one when Elise Chabbey (Canyon-SRAM) attacked early in the stage. Chabbey took advantage of a swift pace on the first QOM of the day that saw the peloton shed a lot of riders.
- The Swisswoman was solo for the remainder of the stage, only caught with 1.6 km to go by Vollering and Lidl-Trek’s Gaia Realini, who had left the rest of the climbers behind.
- As the second climb took its toll Vollering went to the front and only Realini was able to keep pace with the Vuelta winner. The Dutch champion only distanced the Italian in the final kilometre.
- The second stage was again won by Vollering. She bested Longo Borghini by just 18 seconds, and it was only in the second half of the ITT that she was able to put time into the Italian after losing time in the opening portion. The 15.7 km course started as a flat route before it kicked upwards and finished on a climb. A lot of riders, including Longo Borghini and Vollering, opted to swap from time trial to road bikes midway through the stage.
- At the intermediate timing point, Vollering’s time was 24 seconds slower than Longo Borghini, but over the last 3.2 km the race leader took 42 seconds on the Italian.
- One of the most impressive performances of the day was EF Education-Cannondale’s Kim Cadzow in third, 21 seconds ahead of DSM Firmenich-PostNL’s Juliette Labous.
- The pace of Vollering also meant 10 riders finished outside the time cut.
- The third stage saw a string of breakaway attempts, all brought back before a group of five riders found themselves with an advantage. The move included Kasia Niewiadoma and Neve Bradbury of Canyon-SRAM, Amanda Spratt of Lidl-Trek, Elena Pirrone of Roland, and Femke de Vries, the new mid-season addition to Visma-Lease a Bike.
- They worked well together but eventually broke apart on the final climb of the stage when the two Canyon-SRAM riders left the rest behind. They were chased by a select quartet of general classification riders: Vollering, Cadzow, and the Lidl-Trek duo of Longo Borghini and Realini.
- Over the final 15 km Niewiadoma and Bradbury rode together seamlessly to finish the stage 1-2, with Bradbury taking her first professional and first WorldTour win. Over two minutes later De Vries outsprinted Spratt to take third on the stage, followed closely by the GC group.
- Bradbury and Niewiadoma finished over two minutes ahead of the group of GC favourites, moving Bradbury into second overall, four seconds ahead of Longo Borghini.
- On the final stage there was an attempt to catch out SD Worx-Protime by putting riders up the road, including Brodie Chapman of Lidl-Trek and Antonia Niedermaier of Canyon-SRAM. It looked like a really good move, and at one point they had over four minutes on the group containing Vollering, but the group broke apart on the final climb. There was still a lot of road left in the race once the climb ended, but the peloton had splintered leaving only an elite group of chasers. Still, there was a group of breakaway riders who were able to survive until Chapman hit the front of the group containing her team leader Longo Borghini. The Australian obliterated the gap to the leaders, and as soon as the catch was made the attacks started.
- Niewiadoma was the first to attack, and from that moment there was no rest for the front group. The relentless pace eventually reduced the front group to Vollering, Longo Borghini, Bradbury and Niewiadoma. The Polish rider’s final attack led the race into the finishing straight and Longo Borghini was the first to start the sprint. But the Italian champion couldn’t outpower Vollering, who won her third stage of the four-day race and a commanding overall victory, 1:28 clear of Bradbury.
Stage-by-stage results
Stage 1: 🥇 Demi Vollering, 🥈Gaia Realini, 🥉 Elise Chabbey
Stage 2: 🥇 Demi Vollering, 🥈 Elisa Longo Borghini, 🥉 Kim Cadzow
Stage 3: 🥇 Neve Bradbury, 🥈 Kasia Niewiadoma, 🥉 Femke de Vries
Stage 4: 🥇 Demi Vollering, 🥈 Elisa Longo Borghini, 🥉Neve Bradbury
Final GC Top 10
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Quote of the day
The biggest goal is of course the Tour de France [Femmes] but also before it we have already the Olympics and that’s always really special, and after those two we have the World Championships in Switzerland. But now I need to run because tomorrow is the Dutch championships time trial. I don’t know if I make the flight so let’s try that first.
Demi Vollering on her goals for the rest of the season
Brief analysis
- Tashkent City, who recently received invites to both the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France Femmes, saw all of its riders out of the Tour de Suisse before the final stage began. Three riders were outside the time limit on the first stage and two others fell to the same fate in the second stage time trial. Their final rider, Olga Zabelinskaya, was disqualified from the third stage for hanging onto the team car. The team, along with Cofidis, received automatic invites to the remaining Grand Tours after they ranked as the highest non-WT team (18th overall) in 2023. They are currently ranked 34th.
- Vollering’s performance in the hilly stage races this year has been second to none. No one has been able to come close to the Dutch champion who has proven herself whenever the road rises.
- Unfortunately, Kim Cadzow hit the ground in the final stage which meant she slipped down from fifth to eighth in the general classification.
- Neve Bradbury won the Best Young Rider, Elise Chabbey took home the Mountains classification, and with three stage wins Vollering also secured the Points jersey.
- Most of the European contingent of the peloton will now be turning their attention to their respective National Championships which will take place over the next week. After that it’s time for the next “Grand Tour” of the year – the Giro d’Italia Women.
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