Demi Vollering (SD Worx) was crowned champion of the second edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, sealing the title with a second-place finish on the time trial in Pau.
After Vollering's dominant performance on stage 7 where she gained over 1:50 minutes on her closest competitor, all she had to do is make it around the course in good time and safely to confirm her overall victory of the Tour.
In a battle for the overall podium, Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx) flew to second overall, overtaking Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), separated by only 21 hundredths of a second in the overall standings. Olympic Time Trial champion Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) faded and fell to fourth overall.
In a show of force, SD Worx swept the podium on the final stage. European Champion Marlen Reusser set a blistering pace to win the time trial in a time of 29:15 on the 22.6km course. Vollering was second and Kopecky, third.
“I still can’t believe it. Hard work, but it’s not just working hard, it’s believing in it. It’s so much," Vollering said following the race finish. "In the end, you have a dream and you work really hard for it, but you keep yourself a bit calm. You need to find a good balance in your life, and how you can do it. Find a relaxed way to do all this. I think this year I feel really stable, good in what I’m doing. I feel like everything comes together, it’s just an amazing season for me,” she added.
“Actually, I was this morning super, super relaxed and that made me a bit nervous because I was so relaxed. I was like ‘oh I need to wake up’ because you also need to have those nerves for a time trial because it’s good. In the end, if you have those nerves you can really did deep also, it makes you sharp. So this morning, I was first really relaxed and then I got a bit nervous that I was so relaxed and then the nerves came a bit and I was good in the end.”
“I am happy. We almost won everything again, I almost can’t believe it,” Reusser said. “Especially since I worked hard all week for the leaders, I am tired so of course I am very happy.”
"I targeted this time trial, but I had also targeted different things so I'm super happy that I managed to win today."
Kopecky also secured the green jersey, beating Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (AG Insurance-Soudal Quick-Step) by 90 points at the top of the points standings. Niewiadoma claimed the polka-dot jersey beating Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Deceuninck) by 4 points to the climber's award. In the white jersey competition, Cédrine Kerbaol (Ceratizit-WNT) was faster than Ella Wyllie (LifePlus Wahoo), the only rider that could overtake her in the best young rider competition.
Finally, SD Worx won the team competition ahead of CANYON//SRAM Racing, and Kastelijn was awarded the super-combativity prize.
How it unfolded
In its second edition of the event, the Tour de France Femmes concluded with an individual time trial on stage 8. The 22.6km out-and-back course starting and finishing in the Pyrenean city of Pau is a mainly flat route that runs south out of the city with a small hill in the middle.
The first 103 riders left the start gate in one-minute intervals with the final 20 racers were separated by two minutes before tackling the final stage. Mavi Garcia (Liv Racing TeqFind) was unable to start the stage due to illness, leaving 123 riders to start the final stage.
The seventh rider to start, U23 TT World Champion Vittoria Guazzini (FDJ-Suez) set the early fast time of 30:36, and spent the next hour watching rider after rider finishing. Georgie Howe (Jayco AlUla), former British national TT champion Henderson and six-time French TT national champion, Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Human Powered Health) all had faster intermediate time checks but lost time to Guazzini in the second half of the stage.
Grace Brown (FDJ-Suez) smashed that intermediate time check with a rapid 17:05, and kept the pace to get the best time by 28 seconds. But the Australian only had a few minutes to enjoy the hot seat.
European Champion Marlen Reusser (SD Worx) took an emphatic lead at the intermediate time check, a further 27 seconds ahead of Brown. Using her custom moulded TT handlebar extensions clocked the fastest time of 29:15, faster by 40 seconds than Brown and the only woman to break the 30-minute mark. Reusser had to dodge riders and team cars on her blistering tempo and even had to brake when catching her one-minute woman on slight descent, as the team car was briefly in the way.
Fighting for a final podium finish, Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx) flew around the course, overtook her two-minute woman Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (AG Insurance-Soudal QuickStep) in the final two kilometres and finished in third place, 38 seconds off the pace.
Olympic Time Trial champion Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) faded but fought all the way to the finish line and finished in 14th place. The former World TT champion slipped off the overall podium to fourth place.
Wearing polka-dots, Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) raced a strong time trial to take ninth place in the stage, 1:23 down.
The last rider to start, yellow jersey Demi Vollering (SD Worx) went out strong, setting the second-fastest pace on the intermediate check, 13 seconds off Reusser’s blistering pace. She continued her strong tempo, to take second place on the stage and sealed her overall victory.
Results
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