After the Tour de France Femmes, Celia Gery looks back on Demi Vollering's victory and that Niewiadoma incident

The rivalry between Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon//SRAM) and Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) during the final weekend of the Tour de France Femmes was further intensified by an incident between Niewiadoma and Celia Gery, one of Vollering’s teammates. The 20-year-old Frenchwoman even received death threats after Saturday’s stage.

In the penultimate stage, Gery led out Vollering on the final climb and came into contact with Niewiadoma, who confronted her afterward. The Frenchwoman didn’t respond immediately, but she did so after the final stage.

Meanwhile, Vollering and team manager Lars Boom had already spoken out in Gery’s defense at length. Vollering called the comments on social media directed at her teammate “sickening” and emphasized that “at her young age, she’s done nothing but good work and deserves to be protected,” while Boom spoke out against the threats and noted before the start of the final stage that Gery had had a difficult night.

After the final stage, DirectVélo spoke with a tearful Gery. “It feels so good to finish this way. It makes me even happier that Demi won, given everything that’s been going on around her,” said the French champion in Nice, where FDJ-Suez was able to celebrate Vollering’s overall victory.

She also briefly reflected on the storm she had to deal with. “It was really hard to process yesterday, but oh well… That’s just how it goes,” said Gery, who can look back on a successful Tour de France debut. “I didn’t really know what to expect. My preparation was good, and that showed on the bike. It’s great that things went so well from a competitive standpoint.”

Tour de France Femmes winner Demi Vollering was full of praise for how her young teammate handled the pressure, but acknowledged the onslaught she had to put up with.

"She [Gery] received a lot of disgusting messages. It made me very angry, especially because she’s still just a young woman and she should have been protected from these kinds of stupid actions by people who write without thinking… It’s very sad to see people sending these kinds of messages. It was very hard for Célia; she took it badly,” said Vollering.