With fewer than 100 days to go till the Tour de France Femmes begins for the primary time on overseas soil within the Netherlands, two of the favourites for glory on the season’s greatest race have talked in regards to the big day and the doable 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 identify throughout two editions thus far and likewise 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 time.
“It’s actually particular to have to begin in your house nation and that household and associates can watch the race. It’s much more particular to get an opportunity to get a yellow jersey on the primary stage,” Wiebes mentioned at an occasion held in Rotterdam to mark the 100-days-to-go milestone final week.
“I watched the lads’s race rising up and it was really the dream to win on the Champs-Elysées already after I was at junior stage and youthful. I achieved that already. Now the subsequent purpose is right here.”
Vollering mentioned she “would by no means have thought” that the Tour’s first overseas begin could be a Dutch one.
“I used to be actually excited after I heard about it. I’m actually trying ahead to the beginning right here,” she mentioned earlier than speaking in regards to 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 properly. I’ll really feel a bit stress to assist information my teammates by the primary few days.
“It will likely be very nice to have to begin right here and to additionally along with Lorena attempt to get yellow already instantly in the beginning of the stage.”
The opening stage of the race is about to be a pan-flat sprinter-friendly day operating 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 likelihood to make a GC distinction, although for Wiebes the stage might host a unique landmark within the race. She mentioned that one other early yellow jersey is her predominant purpose, together with successful as many phases as doable, with stage 3 probably the longest she’d have the ability to maintain the lead.
“First of all, the purpose is to attempt to end the Tour. But I hope to get as many phases as doable,” she mentioned. “And if it is once more doable – like final yr with Lotte – to get the inexperienced jersey and the yellow for Demi then it will likely be excellent.
“I hope till the Valkenberg, however there’s additionally the brief time trial in between,” Wiebes mentioned when requested about her probabilities of holding yellow.
“But I believe it is nonetheless doable to restrict the time loss and it may be doable to win the second stage. Then you’d have already got 20 seconds of time bonus so perhaps it is doable to maintain it. I believe after Valkenberg it is a bit too exhausting as a result of I noticed that we additionally do La Redoute in that stage.”
Growing the ladies’s sport
The third version of the Tour de France Femmes will probably be the largest one but, given the overseas Grand Départ within the cycling-mad Netherlands and large homegrown names on the beginning line together with Wiebes, Vollering plus Charlotte Kool (DSM Firmenich-PostNL) and Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease A Bike).
Vollering mentioned that she has seen 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 virtually daily so it is loopy to see this,” Vollering mentioned. “I believe 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 a bit bit broadcast on-line or on TV. From 2019 on, yearly we’ve made massive steps and that is actually particular to see.
“[The development] has gone actually, actually quick. You see within the Classics already we’ve the quantity of individuals coming to the races for an autograph or photograph earlier than the race. It’s actually cool to see that so many individuals are coming for us now. It’s 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.
However, she did add a be aware of warning to remind the game to not overlook about these riders racing on smaller groups who’re nonetheless battling to make a dwelling on the bike.
“It’s going actually fast with girls’s biking and I believe it is good, but it surely’s additionally a bit exhausting generally, particularly for the groups. But I believe it is good to encourage girls and children to cycle and to get on the bike,” Wiebes mentioned.
“I believe crucial is that everyone will get a wage additionally from the Continental groups,” she added. “I believe there are nonetheless some ladies using round in peloton who should not getting paid or on the finish they do not make sufficient cash and so they nonetheless should work alongside biking.
“So, I believe we have to be a bit bit extra in step. But that may also be exhausting as a result of with these occasions just like the Tour de France, it makes biking get larger and we get much more consideration than earlier than.”