Demi Vollering finished second in the Tour de France Femmes, feeling less distress than in previous years. She expressed pride in her team's effort and cohesion throughout the race. Vollering finished 3:42 behind the overall leader Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, acknowledging the difficulty of reclaiming the yellow jersey. Despite setbacks, she aimed for a stage victory as a personal goal. The race featured an early breakaway, leading to a competitive group dynamic, but Vollering's chance for the win diminished when the leader attacked in the final kilometers.
I think how we fought as a team the whole day and also the whole Tour de France - I'm really proud of that in a new team. Everything went really well as a team, so I'm really proud of that, and at this moment, that makes me very happy.
Yesterday when I couldn't follow with Sarah [Gigante] and Pauline then afterwards, I was pretty sure that it was not so much possible anymore to move to yellow, but still I really wanted to try to move up in GC and also to go for a stage victory, because that's also what I was missing this Tour de France.
The field broke up early, leaving a small group at the front in pursuit of Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime), who went out on the attack, and then it ended with a group of five - Vollering, Ferrand-Prévot, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney and Niamh Fisher-Black - heading into the final ten kilometres together.
When the French rider in the yellow jersey attacked at just under seven kilometres to go, there was little any of her rivals could do.
Collection
[
|
...
]