There was very little evidence of the tough run that Demi Vollering and FDJ SUEZ have had as stage 5 of the Tour de France Femmes to Guéret unfolded. The 2023 champion was looking every bit in control as she charged to the line near the front of a group of favourites, taking second on the stage and jumping to third overall.
It was a stark contrast to the way Vollering finished stage 3, riding across the line between two teammates. She looked like a rider who was back to full strength in this stage, which offered a tough enough challenge to cause a serious GC reshuffle, but there are far harder stages to come.
"I felt pretty OK. I was really happy with this final, it was a nice one," Vollering told the media, including Cyclingnews, as she warmed down at the team bus after the stage. "It was really like 'playing the game', so I really liked this last part."
The stage concluded with a series of climbs, two category 4 climbs between 35km to go and 20km to go and then a category 3 that peaked at 7km to go, leading into a technical descent and then a flattening out to the line of the 165.8 km stage, the longest of the Tour.
It was a run-in that had severely fractured the peloton, leaving a group of seven, including a good measure of the pre-race favourites, battling it out on the run into the line. It included Vollering, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike), Kim Le Court and her AG Insurance-Soudal teammate Sarah Gigante, defending champion Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto), Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck) and Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime).
"I thought first I wanted to go on the right, so I was next to Anna but then she came totally from the right, so I needed to brake and go all the way around to the space on the other side," said Vollering.
"It was a bit sad because with that I lost a lot of speed, and I needed to come from far to Kim's wheel. Then on the line, I was really, really close, so it was a good feeling to have a sprint final like this again."
The finish was so close that it looked for a moment like Vollering might steal the win from a celebrating Le Court. Still, second place and the six bonus seconds that came with it were enough to move Vollering up into third overall at 23 seconds behind Le Court and just five behind Ferrand-Prévot.
Niewiadoma sits just one second behind Vollering in fourth, while former teammate and coach Van der Breggen is just a further three seconds back in fifth. In all, less than 30 seconds separates the top five.
The biggest win from Vollering’s efforts on Thursday, however, is perhaps not the seconds she gained but what it says about her recovery from that nasty crash on stage 3. Signs of improvement don't come a moment too soon, with the long climbs beginning on Thursday's stage 6. Even though the progress is obvious, Vollering is not ready to declare that she is out of the woods yet.
"I'm a bit tense and stuff like that from the crash," she said. "I hope I will only get better from today, but let's see."
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