It had been a long day to the foot of Le Grand-Bornand on stage seven of the Tour de France Femmes. A breakaway had established itself early in the stage and created an impressive gap. The brave, lone leader of Justine Ghekiere rode ahead of the GC bunch in pursuit of the stage victory. Behind, the tension was building between the likes of race leader Kasia Niewiadoma and her rival Demi Vollering. It would all come down to this climb. The attacks were expected. All eyes were glued to television screens. But the kilometres kicked down and as the finish line got closer, nothing happened at all. There was a stalemate at the Tour.
Defending champion Vollering has the time deficit to make up in this race, so the expectation was on her to make a move. SD Worx-Protime have spoken about their plans to wreak havoc on the GC battle this weekend, but the attack never came. Instead, Vollering rode on the wheel of yellow jersey wearer Niewiadoma. SD Worx didn’t do the expected pacing at the foot of the climb to set up a trademark attack whereby the Dutchwoman usually detonates the field. Niamh Fisher-Black, Vollering’s key domestique, made some attacks to keep things active, but that was all SD Worx were prepared to do. They did not believe it was their responsibility to control the stage.
“Since we lost yellow earlier this week, we lost the responsibility and the responsibility was with Canyon today. It’s because of them that the pace fell down on the climb,” Fisher Black told Rouleur after the stage. “They took a long time to come to the front and take responsibility, which for a team with the yellow jersey I believe you should take more responsibility.”
Keeping her rivals guessing was, perhaps, a stroke of genius from Vollering and SD Worx on the penultimate day of the Tour. The 27-year-old rode the final climb today in a way no one expected, stalking her rivals like a predator does their prey. Vollering was akin to a panther waiting to pounce, biding her time and enjoying the nerves that created in her rivals.
“It wasn’t steep enough [to make a time difference], so I chose the wheel of Kasia. If you take the lead, everyone’s able to profit from your efforts. I didn’t want to do that today. I wanted to make Kasia nervous and I think I did,” Vollering commented after the stage. “She was nervously watching over her shoulder all the time. I feel like she was scared for me to attack her. That felt nice.”
Vollering only showed her hand in the very final metres of the stage, eventually out-sprinting Niewiadoma who made an attack on the approach to the finish line, giving an accidental but almost perfect lead-out to her Dutch rival. While the four second time bonus Vollering ended up winning on the stage is unlikely to make a difference overall with the gaps that are expected to develop on Alpe d’Huez tomorrow, it was all about dealing a blow to Niewiadoma’s confidence.
“I just went for my chance and opportunity to go away with Demi,” Niewiadoma said flatly after the stage when asked about her attack. “She didn't want to pull through, so I rode in the front and then she outsprinted me.”
Canyon//SRAM’s sports director, Adam Szabo, argued that Niewiadoma’s efforts were worth it to test her opponents ahead of Alpe d’Huez, however.
“We need to play. SD Worx isn’t happy with that, but we need to ride smarter than just riding in the front,” Szabo stated. “It was important to see that no riders in the group behind could react [to Niewiadoma’s attack.] I don’t think we had a responsibility to work earlier in the stage, as a lot of teams were working and one of them was SD Worx. We’ve been in this situation many times when they were also not taking responsibility. We don’t need to make the pace hard, we just need to defend the jersey.”
Stage seven may not have created the fireworks on the general classification that some may have expected, but the importance of the stage should not be underestimated. Canyon//SRAM and SD Worx-Protime used the slopes of Grand Bornand to push each other in a different way: mentally rather than physically. After a stalemate between both teams all day, Vollering wanted to put Niewiadoma on the edge, and the Polish rider took the bait. At this stage of the Tour de France Femmes, it’s a game of poker. Tomorrow, each rider must play their final hand.
