The women’s Strade Bianche developed an almost-operatic crescendo with Team SD Worx’ Demi Vollering and Lotte Kopecky separately attacking from a group of favourites and joining forces to chase down solo leader Kristen Faulkner (Team Jayco-AlUla).
However, when they had caught Faulkner on the Via Santa Caterina, that was not the end of the drama. Instead of crossing the finish line together with raised arms, like Trek-Segafredo’s Elisa Longo Borghini and Gaia Realini did at the UAE Tour Women, Vollering and Kopecky fought to the line for a prestigious victory that came down to a photo-finish.
Vollering just edged out her teammate, leading to some confusion right after the race, but that confusion was soon settled.
“I spoke to Lotte, and she was really happy, I came into the tent where we change, and she said, ‘ah, you won, I’m so, so happy’. No hard feelings, I really saw that she was really happy for me,” Vollering said at the post-race press conference.
“Lotte always really goes for everything, that’s something that I like from her, she always goes to the limit and over it. That makes her a really incredible person and a really good bike rider too, one of the biggest riders in the world. If I look back now, it’s really cool to win this way, to win the sprint against Lotte and not have it be a gift,” the Dutchwoman added.
Describing the final 450 metres, Vollering said that she was ready to take Kopecky’s hand and cross the finish line together when the Belgian went past her.
“I was like, ‘is she just doing lead-out for me?’, and then I felt she was really going for it, ‘okay, now we are not teammates anymore, and now we just go full for it’. In the end, it’s the team that won, and we always say: if it is a victory for the team, then it’s good, so this was doubly good,” she said.
“I think there’s no good or bad way to do things like this. Coming there on top together is great for the team already, and if two riders decide they make it a final together between them, that’s fine. It was very exciting for the people to watch and also shows that women’s cycling is really a battle until the finish line.”
Until the finish, the team tactics had been executed perfectly.
“It was the plan for Demi to go where she went, and it was the plan for me to bridge there on Le Tolfe, so I think we succeeded very well in the race plan we had before. And we just got Faulkner in time,” said Kopecky.
The Belgian said that unlike a few weeks ago when the Trek-Segafredo sports director decided for Longo Borghini to win over Realini, there were no orders from the car.
“There was just one call, to get Faulkner back. Once we knew that she was not in the game anymore, it was for both of us to try to go for the win, and I think it was a very nice race to the finish. We are still two professional riders and both want to win. I think it was really nice that we fought to the finish,” Kopecky said.
Team SD Worx sports director Anna van der Breggen, herself a former Strade Bianche winner, confirmed this and downplayed a possible rift between the two riders.
“We didn’t say anything, we didn’t think they would be together at the end. They caught Faulkner very late. What counts is one and two, and the intense emotions after the finish are just first reactions,” Van der Breggen explained.
This last comment was in reference to an incident right after the finish when Vollering apparently shouted the Dutch word ‘kutwijf’ (which roughly translates to ‘bitch’) at Kopecky who, however, did not notice it herself. Asked about this at the press conference, Vollering was noncommittal:
“I don’t remember. I don’t think so, but if I said so, it was more as a joke, like ‘what did you do to me’. Maybe it happened in all the emotions, emotions are really high after a finish like this,” she said.
