The Tour de France Femmes seems to be turning into a battle between Demi Vollering and Kasia Niewiadoma on the Alpe d’Huez. The two were already close in the difficult penultimate stage on Saturday. As a result, Vollering has to make up a deficit of 1.15 minutes in the final stage. In the reaction after stage eight, the Dutch already sharpened the knives with a bit of psychological warfare.
‘It was a long and tough day’, Vollering told NOS about stage eight. ‘The climb was not tough enough, not steep enough, as I thought. If you then take the lead, everyone benefits. I didn’t want to do that.’ Vollering did give some pinpricks, just before the final climb and in the final straight. ‘Yes, I wanted to make Kasia a bit nervous. And I succeeded, she was looking back the whole time. I had the idea that she was very afraid that I was going to attack. That gave a good feeling’, according to a satisfied Vollering.
In the final meters Niewiadoma lost the wheel of Vollering, but the Polish rider got the same time as the Dutch rider in the results. ‘That I made a gap was nice’, Vollering continues, who wants to attack on the final day on the Alpe d’Huez. ‘Tomorrow the climbs are much harder, hopefully that will be enough for me.’
For Vollering it was the second day after her crash, when cyclists usually experience the most discomfort. ‘My body held up well. It’s the end of the Tour, so no one feels great anymore. Now I just have to make sure I recover well for tomorrow. Whether it works or not, we’ll see in hindsight. I can get really worked up about it having to work out, but that only makes me stressed. So I try not to put too much pressure on my shoulders’, concludes the current number eight in the rankings.
Niewiadoma responds laconically to Vollering’s texts
Niewiadoma could look back on a successful day, after all she lost no time on Vollering. ‘Today was a good race for us, certainly as a team we delivered a good performance. Thanks to my teammates I was able to stay relaxed and save my energy for the final’, said the leader of the classification in an interview with the NOS. Niewiadoma noticed along the way that many riders were no longer doing well. ‘I get the feeling that the entire peloton is getting tired. The speed is lower. It is advantageous for me, because I have put a lot of work into staying fit. Hopefully I can finish it tomorrow.’
Then the texts of Vollering: is Niewiadoma a bit afraid of her big competitor. ‘Interesting, if she says so, it must be true’, Niewiadoma shrugs her shoulders. Nervous or not, Sunday will decide who will win the third edition of the Tour de France Femmes. ‘Everyone is looking forward to tomorrow, it is the decisive stage. But I am taking it day by day. My goal is to start as fresh as possible at the foot of the Alpe d’Huez and to be ready for the final battle’, Niewiadoma concludes.
