"They said: ‘No, we’re not allowed to'" - Demi Vollering disappointed with the approach of her former teammates at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad

Unreal scenes unfolded at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad WE where a breakaway duo of relatively unknown riders won ahead of Demi Vollering and the rest of favourites by more than 3 minutes. In the peloton, it sometimes seemed like a big group ride with riders casually chatting behind while the riders at front fought for victory.

Lorena Wiebes said afterwards that they were waiting for Demi Vollering's FDJ - Suez to seize control of the race. "But I also didn't think it was necessarily up to us to control," countered Vollering. "There were enough teams with sprinters, who also benefited from closing the gap."

Eventually it was indeed the French team, assisted by Fenix-Deceuninck, who started to ride at the front with 50 kilometers to go, but with that gap well over 10 minutes, the chances of ever catching the front group were long gone.

"I even thought at times that my teammates were going too fast and I even wanted to slow them down a bit," Vollering suggests. "You can't go too fast too early in the season. Then they keep looking at you in future races. And I think everyone was a bit afraid of that."

She was definitely disappointed by the approach of her former teammates who rode extremely passively. “I asked them if they didn’t want to ride. They said: ‘No, we’re not allowed to, from the car.’ I think they were also annoyed that they weren’t allowed to ride. But that’s just the way it is, isn’t it? I think that everyone is too afraid to put their hands in the fire too early at the beginning of the season. And that they are afraid that they will have to ride first for the rest of the season. Then it’s sometimes a gamble. Whoever guesses best, wins. Or you don’t win. None of us won today.”

In the end, the two teams who did most of the work in peloton were at least somewhat rewarded with Vollering in 3rd (best from peloton) while Fenix-Deceuninck's Puck Pieterse finished 4th. SD Worx - Protime settled only for 5th place when Lorena Wiebes won the sprint of peloton.