With fewer than 100 days to go till the Tour de France Femmes begins for the primary time on international soil within the Netherlands, two of the favourites for glory on the season’s greatest race have talked concerning the special day and the attainable added stress of the Rotterdam Grand Départ.
SD Worx-Protime stars Lorena Wiebes and Demi Vollering will lead the house cost for the yellow jersey and stage wins because the race kicks off with three phases within the Netherlands based mostly round Rotterdam.
Wiebes, the highest sprinter of the ladies’s peloton, has three stage wins to her title throughout two editions up to now and in addition wore the yellow jersey two years in the past. Vollering, in the meantime, is the reigning champion and favorite to take residence the maillot jaune as soon as once more this summer season.
“It is actually particular to have to start out in your house nation and that household and associates can watch the race. It is much more particular to get an opportunity to get a yellow jersey on the primary stage,” Wiebes stated at an occasion held in Rotterdam to mark the 100-days-to-go milestone final week.
“I watched the boys’s race rising up and it was really the dream to win on the Champs-Elysées already once I was at junior degree and youthful. I achieved that already. Now the subsequent purpose is right here.”
Vollering stated she “would by no means have thought” that the Tour’s first international begin could be a Dutch one.
“I used to be actually excited once I heard about it. I am actually trying ahead to the beginning right here,” she stated earlier than speaking concerning the added stress of acting on residence roads.
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“I used to be born and raised fairly shut by and so I do know the roads right here fairly nicely. I’ll really feel somewhat stress to assist information my teammates via the primary few days.
“It is going to be very nice to have to start out right here and to additionally along with Lorena attempt to get yellow already immediately initially of the stage.”
The opening stage of the race is about to be a pan-flat sprinter-friendly day working 124km from Rotterdam to The Hague, with stage 2a the subsequent day one other flat run from Dordrecht again to Rotterdam.
The race’s solely time trial kilometres come within the form of a 6.3km TT in central Rotterdam that afternoon earlier than the Tour heads south for an Ardennes-style third stage.
For Vollering, stage 3 ought to mark her first massive probability to make a GC distinction, although for Wiebes the stage might host a distinct landmark within the race. She stated that one other early yellow jersey is her principal purpose, together with profitable as many phases as attainable, with stage 3 possible the longest she’d have the ability to maintain the lead.
“Initially, the purpose is to attempt to end the Tour. However I hope to get as many phases as attainable,” she stated. “And if it is once more attainable – like final yr with Lotte – to get the inexperienced jersey and the yellow for Demi then it is going to be good.
“I hope till the Valkenberg, however there’s additionally the quick time trial in between,” Wiebes stated when requested about her probabilities of holding yellow.
“However I feel it is nonetheless attainable to restrict the time loss and it may be attainable to win the second stage. You then’d have already got 20 seconds of time bonus so possibly it is attainable to maintain it. I feel after Valkenberg it is a bit too arduous as a result of I noticed that we additionally do La Redoute in that stage.”
Rising the ladies’s sport
The third version of the Tour de France Femmes will possible be the largest one but, given the international Grand Départ within the cycling-mad Netherlands and massive homegrown names on the beginning line together with Wiebes, Vollering plus Charlotte Kool (DSM Firmenich-PostNL) and Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease A Bike).
Vollering stated that she has observed the elevated consideration and the expansion of the game, not solely on the bike but in addition away from it as her impending transfer away from SD Worx-Protime shapes as much as be the season’s greatest switch story.
“Now I get this query a couple of instances nearly daily so it is loopy to see this,” Vollering stated. “I feel that I’ve additionally grown with the game. My first professional yr was in 2019 and that was the primary yr girls’s racing was somewhat bit broadcast on-line or on TV. From 2019 on, yearly we now have made massive steps and that is actually particular to see.
“[The development] has gone actually, actually quick. You see within the Classics already we now have the quantity of individuals coming to the races for an autograph or photograph earlier than the race. It is actually cool to see that so many individuals are coming for us now. It is like in a single yr, the folks doubled, so it is loopy to see.”
Wiebes was additionally happy and shocked with the elevated curiosity within the sport, which has solely grown with the addition to the calendar of the Tour.
Nevertheless, she did add a be aware of warning to remind the game to not neglect about these riders racing on smaller groups who’re nonetheless battling to make a dwelling on the bike.
“It is going actually fast with girls’s biking and I feel it is good, however it’s additionally a bit arduous typically, particularly for the groups. However I feel it is good to encourage girls and youngsters to cycle and to get on the bike,” Wiebes stated.
“I feel an important is that everyone will get a wage additionally from the Continental groups,” she added. “I feel there are nonetheless some ladies driving round in peloton who usually are not getting paid or on the finish they do not make sufficient cash and so they nonetheless must work alongside biking.
“So, I feel we must be somewhat bit extra in step. However that may also be arduous as a result of with these occasions just like the Tour de France, it makes biking get greater and we get much more consideration than earlier than.”
