The Women's Tour: Vollering wins stage 3 time trial

Image 1 of 17

Demi Vollering (Team SD Worx) won stage 3 of The Women's Tour, a 16.6-kilometre time trial starting and finishing in Atherstone. 

The 24-year-old Dutchwoman set the fastest intermediate time halfway through the rolling course and further increased her lead on the second half, stopping the clock after 23:18 minutes.

World Hour Record holder Joss Lowden (Drops-Le Col s/b Tempur) took second place, 1:04 minutes slower, with Leah Kirchmann (Team DSM) in third place another second behind. 

With her convincing stage victory, Vollering also assumed the overall lead. She is now 1:09 minutes ahead of Juliette Labous (Team DSM) who finished fifth on the day, and overnight leader Clara Copponi (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope) dropped to third place at 1:19 minutes.

How it unfolded

Stage 3 was an homage to the British time trialling heritage, but the course of the first-ever individual time trial in the history of The Women’s Tour was quite different from a typical 10-mile course. At 10.3 miles, or 16.6 kilometres, the course was a bit longer, but more importantly it was not the usual out-and-back route, but a loop to the south-west of Atherstone.

Unlike on stage 2 the day before, the riders enjoyed sunshine, but the rolling terrain and strong north-westerly winds still made it a hard race with crosswinds for most of the course and a full-on headwind on the final 1.5 kilometres to the finish.

Alice Towers (Drops-Le Col s/b Tempur) was the first rider to set a benchmark with a time of 25:59 minutes, though she was quickly beaten by Teniel Campbell (Team BikeExchange) who finished eight seconds faster.

Towers’ teammate Anna Christian improved the best time to 25:41 minutes but only held the lead for three minutes as Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Trek-Segafredo) stopped the clock after 25:27 minutes. Janneke Ensing (Team BikeExchange) beat this time by one second, but the next rider on the course, Veronica Ewers (Team TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank), finished in 24:39 minutes and took the hot seat.

This time stood for a while as 10-mile record holder Hayley Simmonds (CAMS-Basso Bikes) stopped the clock after 25:30 minutes while Anna Shackley (Team SD Worx) fell only four seconds short. Alice Barnes (Canyon-SRAM) had been behind at the intermediate timing point but gained time on the second half to beat Ewers’ time by 13 second. Chantal van den Broek-Blaak (Team SD Worx), however, was eight seconds ahead halfway through but lost ground to finish one second behind Barnes.

Six days after beating the World Hour Record, Lowden took another four seconds off the clock to take the lead with 24:22 minutes. Kirchmann had been four seconds ahead of Lowden at the timing point but finished a second slower. Labous recorded the same time as Lowden halfway through but lost four seconds on the second half.

Vollering, however, set a phenomenal intermediate time, 37 seconds faster than Lowden, and finished over a minute ahead. The last three riders, Sheyla Gutiérrez (Movistar Team), Amy Pieters (Team SD Worx), and GC leader Copponi, were far off this time, giving Vollering her first Women’s Tour stage victory.