“Right now I’m completely wrecked”; the reactions of Demi Vollering and her team director after the queen stage of the Tour de France Femmes

Vollering couldn’t keep up when the attacks came on the Col de la Madeleine. “I honestly don’t really know. Sarah Gigante is super strong. Normally I should be able to respond to an attack like that, but these past few days I’ve just been lacking power. I don’t feel the way I hoped I would. I guess” she said.

“I just couldn’t follow, it’s as simple as that,” said a completely exhausted Vollering to NOS. “And then cycling suddenly becomes very simple. The only thing I could still do was try to save my podium position. I went all out in the last kilometer. There wasn’t much left in the tank, but just enough to drop Kasia Niewiadoma.”

“Maybe that’ll be enough to finish on the podium overall, but yeah… we’ll see. Right now I’m completely wrecked. First I’m going to recover, and only then I’ll think about tomorrow,” she concluded.

Sports director Lars Boom reflected on the stage during an interview with Eurosport. “I haven’t spoken to Demi yet, because I wanted to give her a moment to herself. But it looks like we were simply beaten on merit. We executed our plan, but Ferrand-Prévot and Gigante looked very strong.”

“Third place is important now. We’re only twenty seconds ahead, and there’s still a tough day to come, where it will once again come down to the legs,” Boom explained. “What the reason might be, I don’t know either.”