Demi Vollering and Lotte Kopecky on Olympic ambitions - Belgian had Covid-19 out of Giro Donne

Team SD Worx-ProTime are having many of their riders racing the Olympic Games over the coming weeks. In the time-trial they do not have major ambitions taking into consideration Marlen Reusser's absence, but both Demi Vollering and Lotte Kopecky are racing both events. Kopecky revealed she had a Covid-19 infection at the end of the Giro Donne.

“I’m not really afraid of Covid, because I came out of the Giro with a corona infection. So I’m immune to it for a while. I don’t think the infection will affect my performance," Kopecky shared with VTM. "I took it easy for a few days after the positive test, but last weekend on the track everything felt good. So I don’t think it will have any consequences.” The Belgian rider is an outsider for the time-trial, which she already explored:

“The road surface is not in great condition," she said, replicating the words of compatriots Remco Evenepoel and Wout van Aert. "There are a lot of holes, which made it very difficult to find a good line. That makes it difficult to stay in that position. You have to be alert all the time.” Perhaps this could be to her benefit as it could destabilize some of the main favourites such as Chloé Dygert and Grace Brown.

The road race is her main goal, but she does ambition a medal on a good day. "I think I have the least chance of a medal in the time trial on Saturday. We can say that. I will do my best. If it results in a medal, I will be very happy, but if that is not the case, I do not have to panic. There will be two more very good chances.”

Vollering is also committing to the time-trial despite not being her specialty: “Also because I haven’t ridden that many big time trials in my life. And certainly not so flat. Normally that’s not necessarily something that suits me very well," she quite realistically admits in words to Wielerflits. "I have discovered that it suits me well when the distance is a bit longer. But I find it very difficult to say: I know for sure that I will achieve this or that result. For me it will also be quite an experience".

After winning her only individual time-trial of the season at the Tour de Suisse Women, she aims high. But this was a mountain time-trial, the complete opposite this Saturday: “It is flat and there are quite a few straight stretches. But there are never any parts where you can really relax, because the asphalt is very bad. Especially at the beginning and at the end. You are always very concentrated on where you have to ride and you can’t really moped around.”

“It will be very important not to let anything go. An Olympic road race like this remains a very strange race, with a completely different field of participants, all very small teams," the leader of the Dutch team says. "That will ensure that everyone will ride very carefully. Nobody wants to chase when something rides away, so you have to make sure that as a country you are always with the important groups. But you also have to be selective, because you can't jump after everything.”