Marlen Reusser and her Movistar team are ready to go big on the Tour de France Femmes queen stage on Friday, with her DS saying "she's going to try and follow Demi [Vollering], and then we're going to try and beat her".
Reusser finished stage 6 in yellow once again, 12 seconds ahead of Vollering, and whilst this Tour has been challenging and active on the GC front already, Ventoux is set to bring the biggest climbing day yet.
Movistar know they have a battle on their hands, primarily with Demi Vollering and FDJ United-Suez. Still, there's no lack of confidence or drive going into what is, if not the hardest then certainly the most hotly-anticipated stage of this race.
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"I think FDJ will pull full gas, and then we'll see," DS Kelvin Dekker told Cyclingnews about what he's expecting from stage 7.
"We're going to try to win the stage, that's the main thing. [Reusser] is going to try and follow Demi, and then we're going to try and beat her. Because I think if we want to win the Tour, we want to beat her on the Ventoux. But it's going to be hard, so we'll see."
Coming in at 15.6km with an average gradient of 8.8%, Mont Ventoux certainly will be hard, but actually it's fairly steady, even gradients, although the influence of wind could play into Reusser's favour on Friday.
"I think it's a good climb [for Reusser]," Dekker said. "And they're predicting headwinds at the moment after Chalet Reynard, so we'll see."
"I like it," Reusser said, having ridden the climb once in recon a few weeks ago. "In the past the kinds of climbs were suiting me more than what we did so far. But it's gonna be brutal, a hundred per cent.
All eyes are on Ventoux right now, but Reusser was also hesitant to not see the Bald Mountain as the final decisive moment of this race, where a lot of the GC action has already happened.
"I'd say it's one of the most important, because as you could see on stage 5 there were big GC gaps opening, and we also have stages ahead that have a lot of opportunities. So I think it's crucial tomorrow, but then it keeps going – you have to stand in Nice at the end and be in yellow now."
Though Movistar are naturally looking at the well-placed Vollering as their main rival, Dekker isn't counting out third-placed Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney either, and indeed warned about the further-down riders who the top three will have to be careful not to give any time to.
"I think Kasia, Demi and Marlen," he said. "The three of them I see as the real contenders. Also, Mont Ventoux is going to be so hard, and the last days also so hard; even if someone would be able to get some time back left or right, there's also a lot of space to put time into them. Which also counts for the three of them; they can take a lot of time on each other."
"Where you have Kasia, she's more than a minute behind; how is she going to win this? It's a bit the thing of her career – I don't remember the last time she's actually won a race by crossing the line first. I think the Tour is her last win apart from the National Championships. But she's a force to be reckoned with; she's incredibly strong, and you know if you make one mistake, like yesterday in the sprint, that she's there to take it."
The other thing that is adding to Movistar's confidence and assurance in their position is that it's no surprise to have Reusser in yellow at this stage – it's exactly what they've been preparing for for months.
"It's a lot that you try to manage before. I think we had a quite realistic view on how the race would go with the course that we have. We knew we had a really good chance to be in yellow. We also knew really well how the stage would go yesterday, and I think until everything has been going as we expected and as we planned," Dekker said.
"That helps a lot to take away that [over-excitement], but we've always known the goal was to have the yellow in Nice. It's quite nice to have it before Nice, but it's nicer to have it in Nice, and everyone knows this. It's more of nice fuel to keep doing the right things."
And though Movistar hadn't worn the yellow jersey for a few years before this year, they're of course no strangers to yellow after Annemiek van Vleuten won the Tour de France Femmes in its first edition in 2022. As a result, the whole squad are definitely soaking up their time in yellow this time around, but also keeping their eyes firmly on the final prize, something they know how to achieve.
"It's cool for Marlen, it's cool for the team, it's cool for the teammates, and it's cool for the staff even, taking selfies with the lion and stuff; it's just really happy," Dekker said. "It makes working at 10 o'clock in the evening and in the heat and early in the morning and all those things, it makes it a lot easier if you know you're trying to win the Tour as a team and you're on a good way to do this. It's really nice to have [the yellow jersey], and we hope to keep it until the end."
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