Poor positioning into Koppenberg costs SD Worx-Protime in Tour of Flanders

The 2024 Tour of Flanders was far from the day Team SD Worx-Protime had hoped for. They started the race with World Champion Lotte Kopecky, defending champion and top favourite, eyeing a third consecutive Ronde victory – in the rainbow jersey, no less. But in the end, the team finished off the podium with Kopecky in fifth place, Demi Vollering eighth, and Lorena Wiebes 11th.

Like the year before, the Koppenberg was the climb that influenced the race the most. In 2023, Kopecky, Wiebes, and Marlen Reusser were three out of four riders in a front group after the steep cobbled climb.

This year, Kopecky and Vollering were held up and had to run up the cobbles, slippery from the pouring rain, leaving them to chase the front for the rest of the race.

To add injury to insult, Reusser had crashed on the very first cobblestone section, fracturing her jaw.

“Kasia [Niewiadoma - Canyon SRAM] made a strange movement, and then Lotte and I had to get off our bikes. I waited for Lotte and thought that we could come back together. But it just took too long and cost us too much energy. It was a shame because I think we could have played a really good race if we had been at the front,” Vollering explained in her post-race interview with Eurosport, still catching her breath after what she described as a “horrible” race.

Unfortunately, the incident that held up Vollering and Kopecky as well as Pfeiffer Georgi (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) and Emma Norsgaard (Movistar) was not shown in the broadcast as the cameras focused on a collision between Kim Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal) and Chloé Dygert (Canyon-SRAM) that happened seconds before.

At first sight, having to run on the Koppenberg was what cost SD Worx-Protime a possible, or even probable, victory. However, Vollering and Kopecky entered the climb in 15th and 16th position in the peloton after a run-in where both weren’t well-positioned, having to make up ground from behind instead of having the option of dropping down a few places if they found themselves catching too much wind.

“I was not far enough in front before the Koppenberg, that was partly due to circumstances because I was pushed a bit, but it was also partly my own fault,” Kopecky said later.

Not being in the very first positions on the Koppenberg does not automatically rule out a good result – eventual runner-up Niewiadoma was in 17th position at the start of the climb, behind Vollering and Kopecky. However, the 29-year-old Pole swung out from behind and overtook them early on the climb when the gradient was not yet as challenging, and a short while later the two SD Worx-Protime superstars were left on the back foot.

European champion Mischa Bredewold had tried her best to pilot Vollering and Kopecky to the front before the crucial climb, but she started her effort too late, and while Bredewold herself was eighth going into the Koppenberg, her leaders were that little bit further behind.

By contrast, Wiebes had been in an excellent position. Brought to the front by Christine Majerus well ahead of the Koppenberg, she was in fifth position on the wheel of Marianne Vos (Team Visma-Lease a Bike) when entering the climb and could easily follow the pace, cresting the climb in third position.

“Unfortunately, the Oude Kwaremont was just a bit too much for me,” said Wiebes.

In summary, Team SD Worx-Protime had bad luck, and Kopecky said that she wasn’t feeling 100% in the race. But arguably, too, having three leaders in a squad of six – of which one crashed out – when one of them has won the last two editions also was a case of “too many chiefs and too few Indians”.

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