Forward Motion Is Harder Than it Sounds
The 2024 Tour de France Femmes preview
I think if I had to distill the editorial outlook of this newsletter into one decision, it’d be this: I was looking for a photo of Demi Vollering, as she’s the heavy favorite for the Tour de France Femmes, and narrowed it down to two options from the ASO archive. The first was from the route presentation last year, with Vollering on stage in a theater wearing a very sharp double-breasted jacket…would you call that a houndstooth pattern?
The other option is what you see above, with her wearing a stupid-looking time trial helmet. When in doubt, go with the stupid time trial helmet.
The Tour de France Femmes is the last of the three women’s grand tours, and I’d like to start by circling back to the first of this year’s grand tours, the Vuelta España Feminina.
Oh wait, before I forget: I know Peacock isn’t exactly the most popular streaming service, but on the off chance you subscribed to watch the Olympics, don’t cancel it just yet: You can watch the Tour de France Femmes all week there. Okay, enough service journalism.
The Vuelta started the last weekend of April, following a bizarre spring classics season for Vollering. In 2023, the Dutch superstar won 17 races, including five one-day spring classics: Strade Bianche, Dwars Door Vlaanderen, Amstel Gold, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. Winning the last three in succession made Vollering the fourth rider ever—after Davide Rebellin, Philippe Gilbert and Anna van der Breggen—to win the Ardennes Triple in a single season. Vollering went on to win the Tour de France Femmes, and ended the season as the consensus top rider in the world.
Then rumors started to swirl that Vollering and her team, the dominant SD Worx squad, were on the outs. Then she got completely blanked in the spring classics while teammate Lotte Kopecky1 won Strade Bianche and Paris-Roubaix, and outclimbed a bunch of riders half her size to win the UAE Tour. Was this the beginning of the end for Vollering? Was she on the outs? Had her team abandoned her?
Well, since then, Vollering has started four races for her trade team—all stage races—and won every single one.
So no. She’s fine.
And while SD Worx is bringing a sprint squad, with Mischa Bredewold and Lorena Wiebes, for the flat first three days of the Tour, Vollering will have sole leadership of the squad. Kopecky is staying home, but Niamh Fisher-Black will be there to help Vollering up what I assume is the most vertically challenging Tour de France in history: Two mountain stages, the first at Le Grand Bornand. The second, the final day of the race, crosses two outside-category climbs, including a summit finish on Alpe d’Huez.2
So yeah, Vollering has won the last six stage races she’s started, dating back to last year. She hasn’t finished worse than second in a stage race since 2022, and in those cases, the only riders who beat her were either 1) her teammate or 2) since retired.
Calling the race for Vollering before it even starts is a little boring. So who’s out there who can beat her?