Demi Vollering’s hopes of taking back-to-back victories in the Tour de France Femmes took a significant and painful blow after the defending champion crashed at speed in the final moments of stage five from Bastogne to Amnéville, in the Moselle.
The SD Worx Protime team leader was descending into Amnéville, exiting a roundabout, when about a dozen riders, including Britain’s Pfeiffer Georgi, racing for DSM-Firmenich PostNL, crashed around her.
Vollering appeared to land on the small of her back and after a pause was able to continue. By then, however, it was too late and her three closest rivals in the overall standings – Puck Pieterse of Fenix-Deceuninck, Kasia Niewiadoma of Canyon SRAM, and Kristen Faulkner, riding for EF-Oatly-Cannondale – had raced on to the finish.
Vollering’s 22sec overall lead on her Dutch compatriot Pieterse quickly evaporated into the warm afternoon air. Worse for Vollering, Niewiadoma, third overall in the 2022 and 2023 editions and one of her strongest rivals in the coming high mountains, sprinted across the line in second to take the lead in the general classification.
Asked what she had said to Vollering in the aftermath of the stage, Niewiadoma said that she “just wanted to check on her, to make sure she was OK”. She added: “Crashes are not a part of racing we like, but they’re part of racing. We’re all very loyal towards each other, we all have the same goal, fighting for the victories, but it’s nothing you wish on your opponents.”
The 29-year-old said she asked “out of being polite, making sure she was OK and not hurt too much. I think her booty was scratched.” Vollering has fallen to ninth, 1min 19sec behind Niewiadoma. The Polish rider has been close to major success in the Tour de France Femmes before and finished second to Vollering at the summit of the Col du Tourmalet, the pivotal stage of last year’s race.
“I think 1:19 in the mountains is nothing to be honest,” Niewiadoma said of her slender lead over Vollering.
Rod Ellingworth, who left the Ineos Grenadiers team to take a break from World Tour racing in November last year, is to make a surprise return to the Grand Tour scene with the Bahrain-Victorious team in 2025.
"Rod will take on a pivotal role in the performance team and work closely on performance projects over the next three seasons," Bahrain Victorious said, "with a particular focus on Grand Tours and driving the team’s ambitions for a podium finish at the Tour de France."
Ellingworth, the coach behind the career development of Mark Cavendish, Geraint Thomas and Bradley Wiggins, and also a pivotal figure in the era of British domination of the Tour de France, had returned to the British domestic scene as race director of the British Cycling-owned Tours of Britain, for men and women, in March this year.
But after only five months working with British Cycling, Ellingworth is now combining his role as race director to both races, with a new management role with Bahrain Victorious.
In April this year, he said of leaving Ineos Grenadiers: “It was a moment in life where I thought I need to make a change. I wanted to do something different. To be honest, I was just gaining some time at home.”
Ellingworth also revealed that other teams had approached him last winter, but said that he did not want to be “doing the time away.” “That was a massive part of it,” he said. “I just feel like I’ve done my time.”
After an initial spell working with the Bahrain-McLaren team, that ended in late 2020, Ellingworth took overall responsibility for Ineos Grenadiers in 2021, as Dave Brailsford moved on to work across Sir Jim’s Ratcliffe’s interests in other sports, including the acquisition of Manchester United. Jeremy Whittle
But the signs are that the defending champion now has a major fight on her hands, with nine different teams represented in the top 10 positions in the overall standings.
Vollering may need significantly better support from her teammates than she got in the final few kilometres after the crash, when she found herself chasing on her own. There were SD Worx Protime riders ahead and others adrift behind, but she was stuck in the middle, alone.
As she struggled to close the gap, her teammate Blanka Vas, fourth in the Olympic road race, was ahead of her, and sprinted to the stage victory, taking the first Hungarian success in the Tour de France Femmes.
“My radio wasn’t working so I didn’t know what had happened,” Vas said. “I just saw that nobody from the team was there any more. I didn’t know there was a crash. I have mixed feelings because we lost yellow, the crash happened, and I was the only one in front. But this is my biggest victory.”
Vas added she had faith that Vollering could fight back. “She’s very strong,” she said. “We will do everything to get the yellow jersey back.”
Niewiadoma, if not the favourite, is now in pole position as the race heads through the Vosges towards the Doubs and Jura. She said she had been aware of the race leader’s crash.
“I did hear a crash happening,” she said. “At that moment, racing instinct kicked in and we just wanted to make it to the final.
“Our main goal was to win the stage and then we learned about everything that had happened. It’s not like something that we celebrate or that we are proud of, but it’s also part of racing unfortunately.”
Vollering had looked in control of the race until the fateful roundabout. The extent of the grimacing defending champion’s injuries were unclear, but she may yet struggle, with the Tour’s toughest mountain stages coming on Saturday and Sunday.
