Vollering cracks on the Madeleine: 'I just couldn’t follow'

The first week of the Tour had already been turbulent for Vollering. A crash in stage 3 and a public feud between her team boss Stephen Delcourt and Visma’s Jos van Emden - who accused her of wanting to ride “in a golden cage” - caused plenty of unrest. Yet despite the noise, Vollering began stage 8 in a strong GC position.

But when Gigante opened the finale with a sharp attack, only Ferrand-Prévot and Pauliena Rooijakkers managed to respond. Vollering had no answer, as she explained to NOS after the finish: “Sarah Gigante is super strong, but normally I should be able to respond to an attack like that. But I’m just missing a bit of power these past few days and I don’t feel the way I was hoping to feel. I just couldn’t follow, and then cycling suddenly becomes very simple.”

The gap with the front grew quickly, and so did the realisation: the yellow jersey was out of reach. “The only thing I could still save was the podium.”

In the final kilometres, Vollering seemed to recover slightly. Supported by teammate Évita Muzic, she found her pace again and managed to overtake Kasia Niewiadoma. “The last kilometre I just went full to the finish. I just looked at what was still left. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to drop Kasia. Maybe I can get a podium place.”

As it stands, Vollering is third overall, three minutes and eighteen seconds behind the race leader. The fight for the podium is far from over: Niewiadoma trails her by just 22 seconds, with Cédrine Kerbaol another 31 seconds behind. The final test over the Col de Joux-Plane promises to be decisive — but Vollering wasn’t ready to look that far ahead. “Right now I’m completely wrecked. First I need to recover, then we’ll see tomorrow.”

Her directeur sportif Lars Boom remained calm after the finish, though he admitted he didn’t yet have an answer for her struggles. “I haven’t spoken to Demi yet, but it seems like she just had bad legs,” Boom told Eurosport. “I don’t have an explanation. I’ll need to check with her first.”

Despite the setback, Boom praised the way FDJ-SUEZ had executed their plan. “We had Évita, who was still in a good position in the standings, up front. That was good for us. It shows we're doing really well as a team this week. But Pauline and Gigante looked very strong; that’s just the way it is.”

Vollering’s podium position, he added, remains very much within reach. “She’s third now, about 20 seconds ahead of Kasia. That’s good. We’ll try to maintain that lead. Tomorrow is another very tough stage and hopefully, she’ll have better legs then.”