Despite becoming the first woman to win two Tours de France since the race returned in 2022, Demi Vollering is still motivated, with her eye set on winning the rainbow jersey at next month’s World Championships in Canada.
Despite coming close, with a series of top 10 finishes and a second place in recent years, Vollering has never won Worlds, the lack of the jersey a glaring omission in the 29-year-old’s glittering palmarès.
This year alone, the FDJ United-Suez rider has added 14 wins to her tally of 69, a total which would have once have been seen as truly remarkable for a general classification rider. In addition to three stages and the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift GC, she took her first Giro d’Italia Women title, winning two stages there. She also won four times through the Spring Classics, marking her as one of the most versatile and prolific riders of her generation.
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World Championships, though, are historically where she seems to struggle. Last year she was seventh after she and a group of other favourites looked to each other while Canadian Magdeleine Vallieres rode into the jersey ahead of them. The year before she was out-thought and out-muscled by Lotte Kopecky in Switzerland, while in 2023 she was unable to live with the Belgian on the short, sharp climbs of Glasgow.
This year, however, the Montréal circuit suits her to the ground and with her current form she will surely start the elite road race on September 26 as the out-and-out favourite.
"I notice that I’m actually still highly motivated," she told Wielerflits at a post-Tour criterium in her native Netherlands over the weekend. "Just last week, I really felt the urge to get out and train. I’m certainly not done with this season yet.
"World Championships are incredibly difficult, of course, especially because you aren’t racing with your own team. That makes it a real challenge to take control of the race. But it is definitely a goal of mine."
Vollering was speaking to Wielerflits after winning the criterium at Etten-Leur, where she led a star-studded field home, with Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM) finishing second and Tour Queen of the Mountains, Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Premier Tech) third.
"I have genuine ambition," she said of the World Championships. "But first, I need to let my body recover, and then my mind as well. My form is good. With a bit of extra training, I’ll be able to carry that momentum into the next phase. I feel healthy and am going to put in some solid training rides. After that, it’s time to go full gas in Canada."
Vollering also revealed that Dutch national team coach Laurens ten Dam had messaged her with a Kobe Bryant quote after she won stage 5 of the Tour. After she took the final overall victory she sent the message back to him: 'The job is not finished.'
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