The 2024 Tour of Flanders was far from the day Team SD Worx-Protime had hoped for. They started the race with World Champion Lotte Kopecky, defending champion and top favourite, eyeing a third consecutive Ronde victory – in the rainbow jersey, no less. But in the end, the team finished off the podium with Kopecky in fifth place, Demi Vollering eighth, and Lorena Wiebes 11th.
Like the year before, the Koppenberg was the climb that influenced the race the most. In 2023, Kopecky, Wiebes, and Marlen Reusser were three out of four riders in a front group after the steep cobbled climb.
This year, Kopecky and Vollering were held up and had to run up the cobbles, slippery from the pouring rain, leaving them to chase the front for the rest of the race.
To add injury to insult, Reusser had crashed on the very first cobblestone section, fracturing her jaw.
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