A crash in the final 15km of stage 3 of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift saw Demi Vollering (SD Worx) lose a handful of seconds on the line in Épernay as the GC favourites battled each other on the finishing climb.
After sliding out on a corner, Vollering was able to make it back into the group of overall hopefuls, but switched plans to take on a lead-out role for teammate Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio instead of going for the victory herself. Moolman-Pasio finished third on the stage, with Vollering eight seconds down on winner Cecile Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ-SUEZ-Futuroscope).
“I felt really good, so I was going for it,” Vollering said at the finish. “It was a bit sad that that needed to happen, but Ashleigh was really good so I’m glad that she could take third today.”
The team had been working hard during the stage, and had a few options in mind for the finish on the tough circuit in Épernay.
“Our plan was to try something on that first climb in the lap, and then see how the situation was going on the top,” she said. “If Lotte [Kopecky] was still there then we would go for Lotte in the final. If not and we were in a small group then we would ride to the finish for the GC, Ashleigh and me.
“So that was the plan and I think in the end it was still good, it was just a bit of a disappointment that I crashed there.”
Vollering’s crash happened on a fairly innocuous corner before the last categorised climb of the day, a relatively rare mistake for the Dutch rider.
“It was so slippery. It was almost like I was back on the ice track again,” she said. “I thought I took it safe, I was not too fast for my feeling, but I don’t know. I just slipped.”
After numerous crashes caused havoc on stage 2 of the Tour, Vollering reaffirmed the intensity in the peloton in what has become one of the biggest goals of the season for many teams.
“It’s every day full gas. You can lose it every day, you can win it every day, so you cannot fall asleep in the races here. You need to stay really focused everywhere, from beginning to end.”
Wednesday’s gravel-studded stage between Troyes and Bar-sur-Aube offers another potentially dangerous day for Vollering, who will be hoping to reverse or at least not add to her now 57-second deficit on the yellow jersey.
“I hope it will be safe,” she said. “I hope we don’t slip around again, but I think it will be very chaotic tomorrow so I hope we don’t lose too much and can only win something.”
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