Dutch cyclist Demi Vollering winds Tour de France Femmes

Demi Vollering won the Tour de France Femmes on Sunday. The 26-year-old SD Worx cyclist had, in fact, already taken the eight-day stage race on Saturday but still had to make it through the final time trial in Pau in one piece. And she did. Vollering finished second behind her Swiss teammate Marlen Reusser.

Vollering was by far the best in the queen stage to the Col du Tourmalet on Saturday. With 5 kilometers below the top, she left Annemiek van Vleuten behind and not much later passed the leading Polish Katarzyna Niewiadoma. With the stage win, her first ever in the Tour, she took over the leader’s jersey from her Belgian teammate Lotte Kopecky.

Niewiadoma and Van Vleuten saw Kopecky pass them in the standing. The Belgian, already remarkably strong in the mountains on Saturday, rode the time trial of her life and finished third at 38 seconds from Reusser. Vollering came 10 seconds behind the Swiss specialist. Van Vleuten only finished 14th at 1.41 from the stage winner and ended up just next to the podium.

Shortly after the finish, Vollering couldn’t quite believe that she had won the Tour de France Femme. According to her, the basis for the victory was hard work and the good balance she had found. “Of course, I worked hard, but it’s not just hard work; it’s believing in it,” Vollering said after the final time trial. “I don’t know exactly, it’s so much together. You have a dream that you work hard for, but you also have to keep yourself calm and find a good balance in your life to be able to do it.”

That feeling and that calm gave her her first victory in a grand tour. “This year, I just felt good all year round and very stable, together with Anna, who makes my training schedules,” she said, referring to her sports director and former world champion and Olympic champion Anna van der Breggen.

Vollering told NOS that her goals for the Tour included riding a good time trial. “Also, with a view to the World Cup that I have qualified for. Now I also go into the World Cup with a good feeling,” said the Tour winner.

About her first overall victory in a major cycling round, in an already successful year that included wins in the Strade Bianche, the Amstel Gold Race, the Waalse Pijl, and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Vollering said that it hasn’t quite sunk in yet. “I think I need a few days to let everything sink in. Maybe then I’ll realize it. I couldn’t wait for this to be over, and I can catch my breath.”

“When I sit with the team tonight, and we toast with champagne high in the air, I hope I will realize it,” Vollering said after the ceremony. “I always have doubts, and they also make you stronger. I’m never going to sit back because I’m already there. I always remain a bit insecure, and that uncertainty also makes you strong because you always keep giving everything.”

Vollering finished second in the Tour last year, behind Van Vleuten. The 40-year-old Movistar cyclist, working on her last season, stayed ahead of her rival earlier this year in the Vuelta.