At the start of the breathtaking final stage of the race, the 29-year-old Polish rider had a lead of 1:15 over her Dutch rival, due to Vollering’s crash 6.5km from the end of stage 5, which caused her to lose 1:47 to Niewiadoma. SD Worx was widely criticized after that incident for not sending support riders to her aid. Instead, a bruised Vollering had raced desperately on her own to limit her losses.
Still, she appeared to have recovered from the crash, and when what remained of the peloton approached the top of the first of two HC climbs of the stage, the Col du Glandon (19.9km @ 7.2%), she burst out of the bunch. The move came on the steepest part of the ascent, with 2.3km left to climb and 53.6km left in the 149.9km stage from Le Grand-Bornand to the Alpe d’Huez.
When she crested the climb, accompanied on the breakaway by Valentina Cavallar (Arkéa–B&B Hotels) and Rooijakers, she had a lead of 57 seconds over Niewiadoma. Cavallar was eventually dropped and Vollering and Rooijakers raced towards the Alpe d’Huez (14.9km @ 7.9%), with the defending champion doing most of the work. The relationship remained the same on the ascent, with a clearly frustrated Vollering working hard to increase her lead. But when Niewiadoma reached the bottom of the climb, she was only 36 seconds behind. So Vollering had to gain at least another 30 seconds on the ascent and win the stage to win the yellow jersey.
And she nearly did. The gap reached 1 minute with 10.7km left to climb, and it seemed that Vollering was about to take her second TdFF in succession. But she had little gas left in the tank, while behind her Niewiadoma threw everything she had into the pursuit. And she received a big helping hand from Évita Muzic (FDJ-Suez), who put in a mighty shift in front of her.
Meanwhile, Vollering easily outsprinted Rooijakers to take an impressive but bitter victory while Niewiadoma continued her lung-bursting sprint to the finish line. She made it, but by a hair, 1:01 adrift, as Vollering’s 10-second bonus for winning the stage was not enough to win her this most dramatic race.
When she was informed that she had won the yellow jersey, Niewiadoma sat on the road and wept from joy and exhaustion. “I went through such a terrible time on this climb [of the Alpe d’Huez], so to arrive at the finish line to learn that I’ve won the Tour de France is insane, it’s mind-blowing,” she said. “The whole stage was such a crazy rollercoaster. Like I had a really bad moment on [the Col du] Glandon. Then, on the descent, I was able to rebuild myself. I was so lucky to have Lucinda Brand, so thank you to Lidl-Trek; they did a great job getting us closer to Demi and Pauliena.”
A deflated Vollering also shed tears at the finish, saying later: “At this moment [I’m feeling] not so good. First of all, I feel really empty after today’s effort, but of course, also I’m a bit disappointed that I couldn’t win the yellow jersey by just four seconds. That’s a bit sour for me at the moment.”
She then went over the moments in the race which led to her narrow defeat. “If I would jump on the bike a little bit earlier [after crashing]. If I would win in Liège [on stage 4, where she finished second] from Puck [Pieterse]. If yesterday [on stage 7] I attacked a bit earlier. There are so many ifs, but you don’t buy anything from ifs, so I can think very long about that, but it only makes me sad. I think the way how I raced today, I can be proud of that.”
She also mentioned the fact that she had raced mostly unaided after the Col du Glandon, while Niewiadoma benefited from the help of Lidl-Trek’s Lucinda Brand, whose work at the front of the Polish rider’s group in the runup to the Alpe d’Huez took more than 20 seconds out of Vollering’s lead.
This was as much a race Niewiadoma won with her grit and determination as it was lost by SD Worx because of their questionable strategy. First of all, why have Vollering make her attack from so far out instead of waiting for the Alpe d’Huez? On the Col du Glandon, she took 57 seconds out of her Polish rival in just 2.3km.
So it’s reasonable to assume that if she’d gone on the Alpe d’Huez in the same group with the new Tour champion, she might have taken enough time back for the victory. But when it was time to step on the pedals on that final climb, she had almost nothing left. As Vollering put it: “I just tried to keep riding as hard as I could, but I was really empty so it was really hard.”
The team put four SD Worx-Protime teammates into the early breakaway to get them over the Col du Glandon so that Vollering would have help in the runup to the Alpe d’Huez. But when she reached the Glandon climb, there was only one teammate, the indefatigable Niamh Fisher-Black, to help her. After that she was on her own.
And, second, if they had sent some team support riders back to help Vollering after the crash, could they have cut her losses by at least 5 seconds. Probably. They also would have saved her some of the energy she expended in her desperate sprint on stage 5, the energy that might have been useful on that fateful final climb.
Yes, it’s a magnificent victory for Niewiadoma, who deserves full credit for her courage and determination. But it can also be regarded as a failure for a team that should have known the race better and treated its champion better. But this will all be water under the bridge by the end of the year, when Vollering leaves SD Worx-Protime for another team. In any case, this edition of the TdFF was dramatic from beginning to end and it culminated in one of the most exciting days of racing I have ever seen.
Marianne Vos won the Škoda Green Jersey when Charlotte Kool failed to take advantage of her big lead in the points classification race from having won both the stage 1 and stage 2 bunch sprints. But as soon as the race became lumpy, she could not keep up with the peloton and finally abandoned early on stage 7, the first high mountain stage, citing fatigue.
Vos then took a series of intermediate sprints and easily won the green jersey over second-place Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime), by 170 points to 110.
Final GC Standings
- Kasia Niewiadoma, Canyon-SRAM 24:36:07
2. Demi Vollering, SD Worx-Protime + 4 secs - Pauliena Rooijakers, Fenix-Deceuninck + 10
- Evita Muzic, FDJ-Suez + 1:21
- Gaia Realini, Lidl Trek + 2:19
- Cédrine Kerbaol, Ceratizit-WNT + 2:51
- Sarah Gigante, AG Insurance–Soudal + 7:09
- Lucinda Brand, Lidl-Trek + 8:06
- Juliette Labous, DSM-Firmenich-PostNL + 8:07
- Thalita de Jong, Lotto Dstny + 8:12
Stage 8 Results
- Demi Vollering, SD Worx-Protime 4:34:14
- Pauliena Rooijakers, Fenix-Deceuninck + 4 secs
- Evita Muzic, FDJ-Suez + 1:01
- Demi Vollering, SD Worx-Protime same time
- Gaia Realini, Lidl Trek + 1:31
- Cédrine Kerbaol, Ceratizit-WNT + 3:15
- Valentina Cavallar, Arkéa–B&B Hotels + 3:34
- Sarah Gigante, AG Insurance–Soudal+ 5:10
- Niamh Fisher-Black, SD Worx-Protime + 5:14
- Lucinda Brand, Lidl-Trek + 7:06
