Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) won the battle on the Alpe d’Huez, but she lost the war. When all was said and done on one of cycling’s most iconic climbs, Vollering’s margin over Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) on stage 8 of the Tour de France Femmes was not quite big enough, leaving her to settle for second overall.
“At the moment it feels really sour that I lost just by four seconds,” Vollering said after the stage, and the Tour, concluded in France on Sunday afternoon.
Vollering’s bittersweet stage victory in the Alps came three days after another bittersweet day for SD Worx at the Tour, as the defending champ crashed and lost the race lead to Niewiadoma on stage 5, which her teammate Blanka Vas went on to win. Vollering emerged from the day with a significant deficit to make up, but one that seemed within the realm of possibility, especially on the lengthy steep gradients of the final stage.
In the end, Vollering’s long-range move with Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck) came oh-so-close to propelling her back to the top of the standings, but Niewiadoma did just enough to hold on.
“It’s really painful to know now that it was not enough today. I think normally I would also be able to do it, but today I had a lot of pain in my back,” Vollering said. “It was a big fight against myself on Alpe d’Huez, but I’m proud to fight with everything I had.”
As Niewiadoma crossed the finish line and the calculations began – calculations that ultimately confirmed her title as Tour champion – it was hard not to wonder whether SD Worx had been the authors of their own demise by giving Vollering limited assistance in her chase back to the bunch on stage 5. Vas had said that her radio was not working at the time, and she did, after all, take a brilliant stage victory. Lorena Wiebes, however, did not drop back to help Vollering either, sticking in the chase group and achieving an eighth place on the day for her efforts.
At the time, Vollering defended her teammate, pointing out that it might have “all come together again and then she would have had a chance,” but Wiebes’s engine nevertheless could have helped make a difference, especially once Mischa Bredewold had done all she could. In any case, we will never know whether things might have played out differently had SD Worx taken a different approach.
Vollering herself was equal parts philosophical and emotional on Sunday when considering how any number of little things could have led to a different result.
“Of course, there are a lot of ifs. If I would stand up a little bit earlier [from the crash], if I would jump on the bike a little bit earlier, if I would win in Liège, if yesterday I had attacked a little bit earlier,” she said, fighting back tears. “There are so many ifs, but you can’t buy anything from ifs. I can think very long about that, but it only makes me sad. I think the way I raced today, I can be proud of that.”
At the very least, Vollering can look back on this Tour as one that saw her take two impressive stage victories on her way to runner-up honors. All told, it wasn’t the result she came for, but she has been a pro long enough now to have some perspective.
As she put it, “That because of the crash I didn’t win the yellow jersey is very sad, but it’s part of cycling unfortunately.”
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