Dutch rider Demi Vollering underlined her claim to her second consecutive Tour de France Femmes title with a convincing time trial victory in front of her home crowd in Rotterdam, which earned her the leader’s yellow jersey.
“I really didn’t expect this,” said a tearful Vollering of the SD Worx Protime team after taking the lead on stage 3. “I had no idea I could do this today.”
Vollering, who based her victory last year on her climbing skills, overwhelmed her main rivals in the short, flat time trial to win by five seconds over Paris Olympic team pursuit gold medalist Chloé Dygert of Canyon-SRAM Racing.
On an unusual day for the Tour de France, the race was split into two stages – a short, flat road stage in the morning, where stage one winner Charlotte Kool, riding for Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL, again defeated Vollering’s teammate Lorena Wiebes and Visma Lease-a-bike’s Marianne Vos – and a time trial in the afternoon.
But after a hasty turnaround from the morning road race to the afternoon time trial, Vollering asserted her superiority and established herself as the rider to beat.
“These first days were just survival days and I really wanted to enjoy them. I had no expectations at all,” Vollering said. “After the race (in the morning) I took two power naps, I was so relaxed.”
In such a short time trial, the gaps between the riders were always minimal, but Vollering’s lead suggests she is once again at her best. “Now it’s up to the other teams to take the yellow jersey from us,” said Vollering.
“We will do our best to defend it until the end, but the plan was actually to get it a little later in the week.”
The opportunity to extend their lead will come on Wednesday on the Ardennes stage between Valkenburg and Liège, which features numerous short, steep climbs similar to those seen in the classic race in April, Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
In the 6.3 km time trial, Olympic champion Grace Brown’s hopes were dashed when the Australian had to change her bike. Over such a short distance, the FDJ-Suez rider had no chance of making up for lost time.
Two American contenders, EF-Oatly-Cannondale rider Kristen Faulkner, gold medalist in the women’s road race and team pursuit in Paris, and world time trial champion Dygert, another of the triumphant pursuers from the Olympic velodrome, ultimately failed to match Vollering’s mark.
Vos’ teammate Anna Henderson, silver medallist for Team GB in the women’s Olympic time trial, finished a solid 10th and is 11th overall.
At the other end of the race, however, there was a reaction of disbelief at the performance of Team Tashkent City from Uzbekistan, who made a disastrous start to the Tour.
On Monday, four team members abandoned the race after a first stage in which they clearly felt overwhelmed. Their team manager told the media that it was “certainly down to the legs and the speed”.
On Tuesday, the team’s remaining three riders survived but languished at the bottom of the rankings. There has also been long-standing intrigue surrounding the 2023 Uzbek National Championships, where the Tashkent City riders finished in the top 10, improving their world rankings and qualifying for World Tour races.
The 2024 Women’s Giro saw only one rider finish, while the Tour of Switzerland saw six riders finish outside the time limit on stage 2. It remains to be seen how the team’s remaining three riders cope with the upcoming mountainous stages.
Their wildcard invitation came at the expense of more experienced teams, including British team Lifeplus-Wahoo, which has now announced it will disband at the end of 2024.
The team competed in the relaunched Tour Femmes in 2022 and 2023, with Ella Wyllie finishing 16th overall in last year’s race.
