With fewer than 100 days to go until the Tour de France Femmes starts for the first time on foreign soil in the Netherlands, two of the favourites for glory at the season's biggest race have talked about the special occasion and the possible added pressure of the Rotterdam Grand Départ.
SD Worx-Protime stars Lorena Wiebes and Demi Vollering will lead the home charge for the yellow jersey and stage wins as the race kicks off with three stages in the Netherlands based around Rotterdam.
Wiebes, the top sprinter of the women's peloton, has three stage wins to her name across two editions so far and also wore the yellow jersey two years ago. Vollering, meanwhile, is the reigning champion and favourite to take home the maillot jaune once again this summer.
"It's really special to have to start in your home country and that family and friends can watch the race. It's even more special to get a chance to get a yellow jersey on the first stage," Wiebes said at an event held in Rotterdam to mark the 100-days-to-go milestone last week.
"I watched the men's race growing up and it was actually the dream to win on the Champs-Elysées already when I was at junior level and younger. I achieved that already. Now the next goal is here."
Vollering said she "would never have thought" that the Tour's first foreign start would be a Dutch one.
"I was really excited when I heard about it. I'm really looking forward to the start here," she said before talking about the added pressure of performing on home roads.
"I was born and raised pretty close by and so I know the roads here pretty well. I will feel a little pressure to help guide my teammates through the first few days.
"It will be really nice to have to start here and to also together with Lorena try to get yellow already directly at the beginning of the stage."
The opening stage of the race is set to be a pan-flat sprinter-friendly day running 124km from Rotterdam to The Hague, with stage 2a the next day another flat run from Dordrecht back to Rotterdam.
The race's only time trial kilometres come in the shape of a 6.3km TT in central Rotterdam that afternoon before the Tour heads south for an Ardennes-style third stage.
For Vollering, stage 3 should mark her first big chance to make a GC difference, though for Wiebes the stage may host a different landmark in the race. She said that another early yellow jersey is her main goal, along with winning as many stages as possible, with stage 3 likely the longest she'd be able to hold the lead.
"First of all, the goal is to try to finish the Tour. But I hope to get as many stages as possible," she said. "And if it's again possible – like last year with Lotte – to get the green jersey and the yellow for Demi then it will be perfect.
"I hope until the Valkenberg, but there's also the short time trial in between," Wiebes said when asked about her chances of holding yellow.
"But I think it's still possible to limit the time loss and it could also be possible to win the second stage. Then you'd already have 20 seconds of time bonus so maybe it's possible to keep it. I think after Valkenberg it's a bit too hard because I saw that we also do La Redoute in that stage."
Growing the women's sport
The third edition of the Tour de France Femmes will likely be the biggest one yet, given the foreign Grand Départ in the cycling-mad Netherlands and big homegrown names on the start line including Wiebes, Vollering plus Charlotte Kool (DSM Firmenich-PostNL) and Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease A Bike).
Vollering said that she has noticed the increased attention and the growth of the sport, not only on the bike but also away from it as her impending move away from SD Worx-Protime shapes up to be the season's biggest transfer story.
"Now I get this question a few times almost every day so it's crazy to see this," Vollering said. "I think that I've also grown with the sport. My first pro year was in 2019 and that was the first year women's racing was a little bit broadcast online or on TV. From 2019 on, every year we have made big steps and that's really special to see.
"[The development] has gone really, really fast. You see in the Classics already we have the amount of people coming to the races for an autograph or photo before the race. It's really cool to see that so many people are coming for us now. It's like in one year, the people doubled, so it's crazy to see."
Wiebes was also pleased and surprised with the increased interest in the sport, which has only grown with the addition to the calendar of the Tour.
However, she did add a note of caution to remind the sport not to forget about those riders racing on smaller teams who are still battling to make a living on the bike.
"It's going really quick with women's cycling and I think it's good, but it's also a bit hard sometimes, especially for the teams. But I think it's good to inspire women and kids to cycle and to get on the bike," Wiebes said.
"I think the most important is that everybody gets a salary also from the Continental teams," she added. "I think there are still some girls riding around in peloton who are not getting paid or at the end they don't make enough money and they still have to work alongside cycling.
"So, I think we need to be a little bit more in step. But that can also be hard because with these events like the Tour de France, it makes cycling get bigger and we get a lot more attention than before."
