Tour de France Femmes: Nightmare crash for Demi Vollering as Kasia Niewiadoma steals yellow on Stage 5, Blanka Vas wins
Updated 15/08/2024 at 14:45 GMT
It was a day of mixed emotions for SD Worx-Protime as Blanka Vas powered to victory in the Stage 5 sprint while Demi Vollering lost the leader's yellow jersey after going down in a big crash. Vollering must now overturn a 1'19" deficit in the final three stages to retain her overall title, although her immediate concern will be proving her fitness ahead of Friday's hilly stage to Morteau.
Vas grabs it on the line for SD-Worx after crash drama mars Stage 5 finish
A disastrous crash saw Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) lose the yellow jersey on Stage 5 of the Tour de France Femmes as her team-mate Blanka Vas won the day and Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon–SRAM) stole the overall lead.
A largely uneventful day was set ablaze with 6km remaining as a spate of riders, including defending champion Vollering, were wiped out as the peloton navigated a roundabout.
Surprisingly, SD Worx-Protime only contributed Mischa Bredewold to the chase as Vollering leaked time with Vas allowed to pursue a stage win, which she delivered.
After coming home 1'47" down, Vollering dropped to ninth in the general classification - 1'19" behind new leader Niewiadoma with three stages remaining.
Bredewold admitted afterwards that she didn't initially hear on the radio that her team leader had gone down, and came to a complete stop as soon as she realised. She described the ending as a "rollercoaster" with the team delivering the stage win but losing the yellow jersey, highs and lows coming in quick succession.
Blanka Vas of Hungary and Team SD Worx - Protime celebrates at finish line as stage winner ahead of Liane Lippert of Germany and Movistar Team and Katarzyna Niewiadoma of Poland and Team Canyon//SRAM Racing during the 3rd Tour de France Femmes 2024, Stage
Image credit: Getty Images
For Vas, the joy of the stage win was equally tempered by what happened to her team-mate - but it was also redemption for her after her heartbreaking fourth-place finish in the Olympic road race.
"It’s crazy, I still can’t believe it, I did not expect this today, I felt so bad during the day but I was told to believe in myself," Vas said afterwards.
"My radio was not working so I did not know what was happening, I think Demi [Vollering] crashed so we lost yellow, so I have mixed feelings."
Stage five had begun in Bastogne in Belgium, heading south as the race crossed into France. With the sprinters knowing this was their last chance for glory before the gruelling mountain stages began, and a few teams keen to get into a breakaway, it was a frantic start with multiple attacks off the front.
The race really kicked into life over the Cote de Saint-Pancre - the initial breakaway caught, the peloton breaking up and Charlotte Kool (Team DSM-Firmenich Postnl) dropped on a hot and sunny day.
Vas with 'mixed feelings' after Stage 5 win amid team-mate Vollering's crash
Kool did manage to get back in touch - but the question was, how much of an effort would that cost her if it came to a bunch sprint at the finish? That question never needed answering - she was dropped again soon after, and spent the rest of the afternoon towards the back of the race.
The first real established breakaway that looked to have legs formed just over the Cote de Fermont, with Fem van Empel (Team Visma-Lease A Bike), Loes Adegeest (FDJ-Suez) and Julie van de Velde (AG Insurance-Soudal Team) managing to get clear.
The intermediate sprint saw the breakaway hoover up the main points, but there was a bunch sprint behind for the lesser points. It didn’t look to involve Marianne Vos (Team Visma-Lease a Bike) and the reason was soon clear - she needed a new bike soon after.
She managed to get back to the peloton with relative ease, which was just as well as the pace soon started to ramp up.
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Lorena Wiebes (Team SD-Worx) and her team went to the front soon after to try and chase down the breakaway, who with 30km to go had a lead of 2’45’’. With SD-Worx pushing on, the gap came down to 1’42’’ as the race went over the Cote de Briey and the Cote de Montois-La-Montagne.
With 17km to go, the gap ducked under a minute, with Movistar getting involved in the chase as well - they were working for Emma Norsgaard as the race hit the final categorised climb.
Then Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) appeared on the front, but her role there was solely to scoop up Queen of the Mountains points.
The breakaway were eventually caught with 6.5km to go, which was the exact same moment there was that big, crucial crash in the peloton. It happened on a fast, tight turn coming off a roundabout, with many riders caught in the pile-up.
But with Vollering losing nearly two minutes thanks to that moment, there will be an enquiry down at SD-Worx to work out whether they could have done more to prevent her losing so much time.
Losing control of the yellow jersey is one thing, the far bigger issue for Vollering is the amount of time she has leaked as well as the worry of any lingering issues from that heavy crash.
Pieterse also went down, while there was the sad sight of a few riders being helped by the medical car.
With three mountain stages to come and no time to recover, Vollering now has it all to do if she wants to defend her maillot jaune.
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