“It feels very sour that I lost by just four seconds" - Demi Vollering left rueing 'stupid crash' after Tour de France Femmes heartbreak

Demi Vollering left it all on the road in the quest of a second successive Maillot Jaune victory on an absolutely epic final stage of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes. Sadly for the Team SD Worx - Protime leader, despite her best efforts, it wasn't quite enough.

Starting the day more than a minute down, Vollering knew a big effort was needed and that's exactly what she attempted, attacking with more than 50 kilometres still to go. She immediately dropped the Maillot Jaune of Katarzyna Niewiadoma with her attack too, riding clear with fellow contender Pauliena Rooijakkers. Despite the best efforts of the two up the road however, Niewiadoma limited her losses extremely well and kept the lead duo within range on Alpe d'Huez, eventually saving her Maillot Jaune by just 4 seconds.

“It feels very sour that I lost by just four seconds," admits Vollering in her post-stage interview, rueing a badly timed crash earlier in the race that had left her with so much work to do. "Because before the Yellow Jersey was very secure on my shoulders, but then the stupid crash was there and I lost it actually there. It’s really painful to know now that it was not enough today. Normally I would also be able to do it, but today I had a lot of pain in my back. It was a big fight against myself on Alpe d’Huez."

"I tried to fight with everything I had. I know that we have an event in Holland and there are a lot of people fighting every year for a good charity for cancer research. All those people fight all the way to here [Alpe d’Huez]. Today I was thinking about this. I could never give up, that was what I did, but it was not enough," Vollering concludes. "I won two stages, one time second and one time third, I had a very good Tour de France, only one day was a bad day.”