Good day and thank you for opening this week’s Wheel Talk Newsletter. Now that the news is finally out that Demi Vollering will ride for FDJ-Suez in 2025, the Dutch superstar is finally telling her side of the 2024 season story, at least some of it. Plus, this week I chatted with Anna Henderson about her time with Visma-Lease a Bike, her move to Lidl-Trek, and her Olympic experience.
Wheel Talk
Enter your email address to get the latest news and analysis from the women’s peloton delivered directly to your inbox!
Get the latest news and analysis from the women’s peloton delivered directly to your inbox!
‘I never really learned to bite back’ – Vollering opens up about a turbulent season
All year, since Danny Stam let slip that Vollering wouldn’t return to SD Worx-Protime after the 2024 season, speculation about the Dutch rider and her Dutch team has been a hot topic. Questions about who Vollering would ride for in the coming season came hand in hand with questions about her current team, the team that picked her up after only two years of racing at the UCI level and helped guide her through the ranks to win the 2023 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift along with a long list of other WorldTour races. Even casual viewers could sense a tension between Vollering and her team and by the time crash-gate happened at the Tour in August, it was hard to ignore the faltering relationship between the two sides.
Even when Stam was talking to the media (while Vollering was mid-race) and everyone was wondering what was going on and what team Vollering would join, the Dutchwoman stayed silent. She respectfully did her job, tried to win races, and stayed away from the drama as best she could. With the season behind her and a new team on the horizon, Vollering finally opened up (a little bit) about her final year with SD Worx-Protime and that Tour crash.
In an interview with Dutch newspaper NRC.nl Vollering spoke about her season, tension with SD Worx-Protime’s other star Lotte Kopecky, the impacts of her Tour crash, and more. The interview sheds a little more light on one of the season’s biggest talking points – the four-second disadvantage that lost Vollering a second Tour title.
One of the biggest revelations to come out of the interview is the severity of Vollering’s crash at the Tour. The 2023 Tour winner says that, after the Tour was completed and she was able to go to a Swiss hospital, it turned out she’d broken her tailbone. This explains the minute or so post-crash where Vollering can be seen slowly getting to her feet, with her hand on her back.
“At first I had no feeling at all in my left leg,” Vollering said. “My bike was on the ground next to me but it just took me a minute before I could bend over and pick it up. At first, I thought: I broke my hip.”
Why it was only after the Tour that Vollering was properly checked for injuries is unclear, but the Dutchwoman continued on in the race. After she lost yellow the team told her it would be fine because the mountains were still to come.
“That was of course a vote of confidence, but it also felt like: you’re just saying this because it’s easy,” Vollering said. “Every time I heard someone say that, I thought: it’s not going to work at all. I felt something was wrong.”
As it turned out, something was very wrong. Riding that final stage, in the style Vollering did, with a broken tailbone is borderline insane.
Vollering also explained a bit about the aftermath of the crash, when none of her teammates or the team car immediately jumped to her aid.
“It was chaotic and this kind of thing happens in cycling,” she explained. “Lorena had not yet won a stage that Tour, this was her last chance. Everyone on the team felt for her, we were extremely motivated to help her win that day. I think everyone got a little lost in that.”
She goes on to say that the directors in the car didn’t have a good enough overview of the situation on the ground and didn’t realize at first that Vollering had gone down.
Throughout the interview, Vollering remained surprisingly passive about her final season with SD Worx-Protime. The only three things she said about her relationship with members of the team pertained to Kopecky, Anna van der Breggen and Stam.
About Stam and his premature announcement that Vollering would leave his team, Vollering said at the time she had still not made up her mind about her future. Vollering said the statement Stam and SD Worx-Protime made at the end of March felt like “a slap in the face” because she was still hoping that she and the team could come to an agreement.
From them on, her relationship with team management changed, although Vollering tried to keep things professional for the remainder of the season.
Interestingly, Vollering found out about Van der Breggen’s return to racing on social media, with everyone else, despite the two previously having a close relationship. Van der Breggen was even Vollering’s coach for a time. The team had been informed two hours prior via email but Vollering missed the memo.
“I was a bit frustrated and angry about that too,” Vollering said about not finding out from Van der Breggen herself. They spoke soon after at the National Championships about the situation.
“I said: you know everything about me. Then she said: you basically know everything about me too. How I train you is also how I will train myself.”
Already after the Tour Vollering started to work with FDJ-Suez’s coaches and it was then that she removed Van der Breggen from her TrainingPeaks account.
On her relationship with Kopecky, Vollering said that by Tour of Romandie, the two weren’t speaking.
“I think she tried to avoid me a bit, she was more focused on herself,” Vollering said of Kopecky. “I understand that, with all the expectations they have of her in Belgium. But she was very focused on next year, when I will no longer be here.”
“Throughout the season, when I rode a race with Lotte, I raced with two plans. A plan for Lotte, a plan for Demi. But I just need tight tactics.”
This final statement sheds a bit of light on some of the Classics earlier in the year, where it was clear the two were struggling to work as a unit, and potentially why the team didn’t push for Kopecky to race the Tour. Kopecky made it clear early on that the Olympics were her goal, and despite a Tour stage taking place in Belgium, she wouldn’t be racing for yellow in 2024 but instead lining up at the Giro d’Italia. But an added benefit of their different programs was that the team suffered from less internal tension between two top riders.
On a lighter note, the interview also allowed Vollering to open up about herself, for example why she often cries in post-race interviews. She explained that she is shy, and that being confronted with a group of journalists after a race can be overwhelming, and honestly yeah … she has a point.
“When I became a professional rider, I also found such a group of journalists very difficult after a stage. In the beginning I was often very emotional after a match. I also think those tears came because I was so shy. I had no words ready, the emotions were a way to express myself.”
Stam told Vollering when she first joined the team not to complain and Vollering interpreted it as “emotions are not wanted.” This backfired and she cried more often because of it. She also said that she has a habit of being “too nice,” which doesn’t go well with being a top athlete.
“I never really learned to bite back,” Vollering said. “At one point I was often told: you are too sweet. I just find it difficult to be bitchy, but you need that sometimes in top sport.”
Her personality, she said, conflicted with her desire to win. For example, this season both Niamh Fisher-Black and Marlen Reusser were up for contract and Vollering understood they would want to get their own results, but allowing them to have their own chance a glory was hard for her because of her desire to win. During races, Vollering can allow herself to be a bit tougher, but off the bike it’s not something that comes naturally.
The interview was an enlightening one, not only because of the small amount of information regarding the drama around SD Worx-Protime and Vollering that the Dutchwoman divulged but also because of the glimpses of Vollering as a person that she shared. During the season, she remained silent. She still had to ride for the team, they both had goals that depended on one another.
“I found that difficult at times, but I wanted to protect myself and the team,” Vollering said of remaining neutral in front of the cameras. “I knew we still had to ride together the whole season, so I wanted the atmosphere to remain good.”
Now that the 2024 season is over, and her contract with SD Worx-Protime will expire in a few short weeks, Vollering is ready to share her story and hopes that the world is more forgiving of her mistakes in the future once they know her a little better.
Racing Continues…
… in 57 days at the Tour Down Under!
Although … if you’re feeling a bit lost without road cycling in your life, may I suggest tuning into the first cross country skiing World Cup of the year this weekend in Ruka, Finland. The women have a 10 km Classic Interval Start (like in a time trial) on Friday, a Classic Sprint on Saturday (the best event, imo), and a 20 km Mass Start Free on Sunday. Live coverage, depending where you are located, can be found at skiandsnowboard.live, on MAX, or on Discovery+.
Wheel Talk Podcast
This week I sat down with Anna Henderson to chat about her early career with Sunweb and then Jumbo-Visma/Visma-Lease a Bike, her move to Lidl-Trek for the 2025 season, her Olympic silver medal and how she coped with her success in Paris.
Let’s Discuss …
The darker side of an Olympic medal (with Anna Henderson).
Anna Henderson’s 2024 season could probably be found in a dictionary under “rollercoaster.” Before the season started she had her heart set on a solid Classics campaign, a spot on Great Britain’s Olympic team, and a new contract, but it didn’t take long for her plans to fall off the tracks. Even with some bad luck, Henderson still walked away from the season with an Olympic silver medal, more than most riders can dream of, but in the months after she stood on the podium in Paris she struggled to come to terms with what she had accomplished and what to do next.
“It was a strange year to be honest,” Henderson told Escape Collective. “I had some of my best performances ever, and also some of the worst luck ever. It’s been strange to navigate towards the end of the year, I think I’ve realized how tired I am mentally from it all.”
Henderson started her career in 2017 with the British Onform team and was picked up by Sunweb two years later. She spent only one year with the WorldTour team before she eventually found a home at Visma-Lease a Bike, then Jumbo-Visma. Her year with Sunweb was a weird one; it was 2020, the year racing was postponed by the pandemic for much of the season only to pick up in full force in late summer. She didn’t have the best year, but the team manager of Jumbo-Visma, Esra Tromp, who was building the new women’s team from scratch, saw something in Henderson.
Throughout her four years with the team, Henderson learned a heck of a lot. She became known as one of the better descenders in the peloton, won the British time trial title, and fell in love with the Classics.
“It takes a village to raise a rider,” Henderson said of her time with the Dutch team.
On the first race day of her 2024 season, at Setmana Valenciana, Henderson crashed and broke her collarbone. She missed the bulk of the Classics season but returned for the Amstel Gold Race and Liège-Bastogne-Liège in April. Her next race was Vuelta a España, but two stages in she crashed again, re-breaking it. The second time hurt a lot more. Not only physically, but emotionally and mentally as well. But Henderson wasn’t about to let another setback take away her Olympic dreams.
“Nothing was going to stop me from going to the Olympics,” she said. “I was like a bullet train. You couldn’t mess with me.”
Her determination to not miss a step had her back on the bike incredibly soon after the crashes, almost too soon, Henderson said.
“I don’t think I actually stopped,” Henderson said. “When I look back now, I was back outside a week after operation which I don’t think was super healthy to be honest. I should have given my body more time to rest.”
Before the Olympic Games in Paris, Henderson already knew she was carrying good form. She regained her British time trial title and finished second in the National Championship road race just after finishing second overall at the Tour of Britain behind Lotte Kopecky. But even Henderson couldn’t have predicted what her form would bring her in Paris.
“I came into the Olympics and I was flying,” she said. “I achieved way above anything that I ever imagined I’d achieved. It was my dream as a kid to go to the Olympics, let alone get a medal, so getting that medal was wild.”
She had thought bronze was within reach but hadn’t dared hope she could finish second in the time trial.
“The week after, I was like a rabbit in the headlights for a week after and then came into the road race and I thought ‘I really don’t feel normal.'”
She still managed to finish 13th in the road race, but this was followed by a disappointing Tour de France Femmes. Ultimately, Henderson didn’t finish the final stage. Afterwards, it took some time to find her legs and her motivation again.
“I was feeling really lost,” Henderson said. “You underestimate everything that you put into it and everything the Olympics is, and afterwards I didn’t know what to do or where to turn.”
“It’s been quite sad, how I was feeling, and I’m really lucky at home I have my boyfriend, my family, my boyfriend’s family and they are all really supportive of me and I can speak really openly.”
She only raced one UCI 1.1 before heading to Zurich for the World Championships.
“I got a little motivation back and mentally I was feeling really good for the Worlds but physically I never really came back to that point I was at at the Olympics. It’s been a struggle to stay on top of it and get the best out of myself for the rest of the year. I was tired.”
“I felt quite disappointed at the Worlds with seventh, but I shouldn’t be because it’s still top-10 in the world. If you’d told me that last year I would have been screaming, jumping up and down with joy, and this year I felt strangely disappointed and let down by myself.”
Henderson finished her season, and her four-year run with Visma-Lease a Bike, at the Simac Ladies Tour. In 2025 she will join Lidl-Trek on a three-year contract.
As she looked back on her season, and her time with the Dutch team, she admitted that both herself and the team didn’t have the year they’d hoped for.
“For me, on a personal note it was a difficult year,” she said. “The team also saw a lot of change this year. We had a whole new change of management, directors and coaches. That was a really big shift that happened in the women’s team so we were all finding our feet a little with that and learning each other and finding out how we make each other better.”
Henderson is confident the Dutch team will have a fantastic future, but she’s excited for what change could mean for her and her career. She’s hoping to slot into Lidl-Trek’s Classics team as a key component there. When it comes to time trials, after her success in Paris, she does feel some internal pressure to follow up with some more top results.
“I don’t feel [pressure] externally, but internally, especially now in time trials, I’m like, ‘Well I have the silver medal I should be at least on the podium in every time trial.’ But you have to respect your opponents who are super good, and everyone has their day.”
“The time trial level has gone up hugely in the last couple of years in the women’s side and it’s cool to see consistently different people on the podium and everyone is making those gains with aero testing, getting faster and faster.”
Henderson committed to not only allowing her body to recover over the off-season but her mind as well.
“As a bike rider we have so many days of the year where we’re racing,” she explained. “If you have a bad race you move onto the next, onto the next, you never really take a moment to take it in. With the Olympics, I felt it was something really different. I didn’t know how to deal with achieving above my goal. I’ve learned a lot about myself.”
Overall, Henderson is proud of what she was able to achieve in 2024, especially in the context of what she had to overcome.
“I think I can be proud of my whole year, of how I’ve dealt with all of the adversity and everything that’s gone on and changing teams, it’s also a lot.”
She delt with more in one season than a lot of riders experience in three. Two broken collarbones, overwhelming success, and the challenging experience of negotiating a new contract. Altogether, it made her stronger, and she’s looking forward to testing out everything she’s learned next season in a new jersey.
A picture worth a couple of words
Henderson is heading to a new team but there will still be some familiar faces there. Her teammate from Visma-Lease a Bike Riejanne Markus will also join the American team next season, but Henderson is most excited about being teammates with Lizzie Deignan.
Taylor Swift corner
The Eras Tour finally comes to an end next Sunday, December 8th. We’re in the final countdown to the end, after which we will be in uncharted waters. Either Swift will announce her final two re-records –Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version) and Reputation (Taylor’s Version) – in Vancouver and wrap up all her Eras with the tour, or we will be left questioning when the pop sensation will spontaneously drop that she’s releasing the final two of her re-record project. No one knows … except Swift herself.
Her 35th birthday is coming up on December 13th; what are the chances she releases both albums around then as a gift to her fans for making the Era’s Tour such a success?
(Vollering’s anthem for the 2025 season … probably)
Until next time
Thanks for reading, I’ll be back next week!
Did we do a good job with this story?