Expectation vs. reality: SD Worx-Protime’s Tour de France Femmes - Analysis

It’s fair to say SD Worx-Protime were under pressure before Lorena Wiebes’ victory on stage three of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

The Dutch team have built such a reputation over the last 11 years they are expected to win, and when it came to the stage three sprint finish they duly delivered. That came as no surprise - since her breakthrough in 2019, Wiebes has established herself as the most dominant sprinter in the women’s peloton in years.

She was second on the uphill sprint the day before too, but people have come to expect so much more from the team. Some of those expectations are fully justified, others are not.

Lotte Kopecky joined SD Worx in 2022 as an already established superstar and she’s done nothing but improve ever since. She’s won Paris-Roubaix, three editions of the Tour of Flanders and many other one-days races. There’s GC success too, the Tour of Romandie, UAE Tour and don’t forget second place finishes at the Giro last year and the Tour the year before that.

So maybe we were right to expect more from the World Champion on the opening two stages, which on paper, seemed perfectly suited to her strengths. But a closer look tells a different story.

Kopecky began this year with the target of winning the Tour de France for SD Worx, but injuries over the winter hampered her spring and she only won the Tour of Flanders. That win would be enough for most teams and most riders, but not Kopecky and not SD Worx. Then, having headed to the Giro d’Italia earlier this month in a support role, back pain forced her to abandon.

Last week, before the Grand Départ in Vannes a team press release announced Kopecky’s GC bid was no longer on and that stages would be the goal. Are we still surprised she was not able to win the opening two stages?

“We have spoken a lot about it already, Lotte is not what we expect in how she should be,” team sporting manager, Danny Stam said after Wiebes’ stage three win. “For us it’s important that we keep the morale high and Lotte is working now for the group and she enjoys it."

“The problem is a little bit the preparation that we had before, if you have the back problems and you cannot prepare well and then you come with a little bit less shape. And if you expect a lot, then things come together and it’s not what you want.” That final sentence helps explain Kopecky’s subdued mood early in the race. She wants to perform, she’s a winner, but at the moment she can’t.

So why are expectations so high?

For so long SD Worx-Protime have been the world’s leading team. They began as Dolmans Landscaping in 2010, becoming Dolmans-Boels then Boels-Dolmans in 2013 when their only victory was Lizzie Armitstead’s (now Deignan) national championships.

The next year Armitstead won the World Cup, the precursor to the WorldTour, repeating the feat the following year. In 2016 they won the Giro with Megan Guarnier, the next year it was Anna van der Breggen, they just kept on winning big races. But last winter, after years of keeping a cadre of top riders on board and happy, they lost Marlen Reusser to Movistar, Niamh Fisher Black to Lidl-Trek and, perhaps most importantly, Demi Vollering to FDJ-SUEZ. The heart of their winning squad had gone, and though Van der Breggen came out of retirement after a period as a sport director on the team, she had too many pairs of shoes to fill.

But on sprint stages they continue to rule. Wiebes has not been beaten in a bunch finish this year and yesterday’s win brought smiles for the whole team, even Kopecky’s sombre mood was lifted.

“We knew it would be very chaotic and the girls did amazing all day trying to bring the break back. I thought Lorena could finish it off - it’s super nice. Nobody wanted to help today, so the fact we still finished it off is even nicer,” she said at the finish.

Other teams have faced criticism for helping SD Worx during races - and in sprint stages, that criticism is often well deserved. Let them do the work, and they might actually have a chance to beat Wiebes.

On Monday, that’s exactly what happened. SD Worx-Protime controlled the race from start to finish. In the finale, Van der Breggen, now riding as their GC leader, took to the front to deliver the final pull, just before Kopecky moved into position for the lead-out.

“She’s fighting always for being in position and we hope she has the good legs for the mountains but she has some days to go for that,” Stam said of Van der Breggen’s lead out work.

Monday’s win will have come as a relief to the entire team, even if they had not expected success earlier in the race. But another sprint is expected on stage four and surely the pressure will be on again? “Today we didn’t expect the help from someone else and then we needed to do it by ourselves and I think the girls did a great job we will see tonight how tired they are for tomorrow.”

Stam is a man of few words and he’s also not a man to blink first, if he feels putting his team on the front all day again will negatively affect later targets he won’t do it. Just as he’s done in past races, from the 2017 Women’s Tour to this year’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. 

So will Wiebes strike again on stage four? That depends. If SD Worx-Protime are left to carry the weight once more, they might think twice. And if they don’t, the rest of the peloton will have no excuse.