"Demi takes a lot of pressure from that": Vollering's former teammate on how the heavy criticism weighs on the star

Team SD Worx - Protime is arguably the strongest in the women's peloton, although their dominance has been alleviated by the arrival of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, and the departure of their biggest GC star Demi Vollering. The Dutchwoman set out to FDJ - SUEZ in search of more leader opportunities and also to escape media dramas arising from the conflict of interests in her former team.

This was best apparent at last year's Tour de France Femmes. There, Vollering was off to a great start, taking yellow jersey on stage 4. But the very next day, she got involved in a bigger crash towards the end of the stage and, to everyone's surprise, no SD Worx teammates waited for the overall victory favourite. In fact, Blanka Vas even attacked at the front to secure a stage victory. Media were quick to call out Vollering's teammates for abandoning their leader. That includes Niamh Fisher-Black who was since also moved on to Lidl-Trek.

"I think it was blown way out of proportion," Fisher-Black said on the Domestique Hotseat, regarding media narratives about SD Worx during last year's Tour. "We spent the whole 10 days or whatever together, and there was never a problem. We didn't have any internal ongoings in the team or anything. We all did everything that we could actually to make sure Demi could win that Tour de France."

"I hated the fact that the media came out and told me that I was a bad teammate and everything and told my other teammates that they were bad teammates," she explained. "It was an honest mistake that we didn't see her for a long time in that crash, and we didn't know the situation." Ultimately, it was the few seconds that her teammates didn't help Vollering catch up that tipped the scales in favor of Kasia Niewiadoma and cost Vollering her second consecutive Tour title.

While Niamh blooms in her new team, rising to new heights with a 5th place overall at the Tour de France Femmes, for Vollering it has been a mixed debut season in new colours, winning four Spanish stage races early into the season as well as the Strade Bianche Donne, however she then lost the Tour to Ferrand-Prévot and also missed her shot at the World Championships due to poor tactics. That didn't go unnoticed.

"Demi is an incredibly talented athlete, and she's won a lot of really great races. So it's normal that she receives a lot of criticism," she noted. "Having known her as a teammate and being friends with her, I know she takes a lot of pressure from that, and also, I think she has her own struggles dealing with it all."

The stalemate in favourites' group including Vollering allowed an escaped group with Magdeleine Vallieres fight it out for a shocking victory. While some portrayed Vallieres as an unknown breakout star, Fisher-Black was familiar with the Canadian's abilities.

"Her performance on the day did surprise me. I think she really had the race of her life, but it does annoy me that a lot of people say to me now, like it's the first I heard of her, because I do think that she's been performing incredibly well," she said. "I remember racing around the top 10 with her at the Ardennes Classics. She's always been thereabouts and always been there."