Tour de France Femmes 2024 Stage 4 preview - Puncheur profile primed to ignite GC battle

Amstel Gold Race and Liège-Bastogne-Liège are two of the most thrilling races on the Women's WorldTour calendar, and the 2024 Tour de France Femmes has combined parts of the two for an exhilarating fourth stage that is set to light the GC battle on fire in the hilly terrain of the Ardennes.

Surprisingly, however, there were big developments in the overall standings thanks to the time trial on Tuesday in Rotterdam, with stage winner and new race leader Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) eeking out at least a 15-second gap on her rivals.

Vollering leads by just three seconds but this is from teammate Lorena Wiebes who she'll be working with to defend yellow on stage 4. The stage hunters may have other ideas, but SD Worx-Protime is unlikely to want to give them to much room to move or hand the jersey of the race leader over to a rider in the break.

“That’s not the plan, probably, I mean if you have it, then you want to defend it,” said Vollering of yellow. 

“Tomorrow is already a stage for GC so if you let someone go there’s probably going to be someone who can climb really well so that won’t be the smartest idea. The team is very motivated to keep the jersey.”

Vollering has got a wealth of experience heading into the Côte de la Redoute (1.6km at 9.4%), Côte des Forges (1.3km at 7.8%) and the Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons (1.3km at 11%) triple climb finale, as it has long featured in the final of Liège. Vollering has won the race twice, in 2021 and 2023. 

They are hellishly tough hills to crest and with the burn already flowing into the legs after a gruelling day, there should be some huge victims on GC even before the race reaches the high mountains at the weekend. Vollering didn't arrive solo at her most recent Liège win in 2023, but the rider able to follow her then – Elisa Longo Borghini – was forced to miss this edition of the Tour de France Femmes after a training crash.

There are, however, others who have proven their ability to stand in between Vollering and victory in Liège among the field. When Vollering tried to defend her Ardennes crown this year she lost out in the finale to Grace Brown (FDJ-Suez), who'd been in an earlier move before sprinting to victory, along with Longo Borghini. And after puncturing on the stage 3 time trial, the Olympic ITT Champion will be even hungrier to attack the punchy climbs to try and snatch victory just as she did in April.

Still for Vollering, the team expertise doesn’t end with those on the bike at the race, but also runs through the team’s management, with a fellow two-time Liège winner Anna van der Breggen being one of the sports directors following on in the car. The SD Worx-Protime pair make up half of the eight wins at Liège since it was added to the women’s calendar.

“Tomorrow is a hard stage, it’s like Bastogne-Liège so we will see after tomorrow how the GC is and everybody is feeling then make plans. I think tomorrow will be really fair, a hard day,” Van der Breggen told Cyclingnews and Velo.

“We start in Valkenburg in the Netherlands still so it is a really nice stage and it is something that Demi suits of course.”

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Van der Breggen and Vollering are the only two women to have completed the famous Ardennes triple, which also includes La Flèche Wallonne, but it’s just the Amstel which also has characteristics from its route lining Wednesday’s 122km stage, with the Mur de Huy not included.

Bemelerberg, Cauberg and Geulhemmerberg will be on the route the 147 remaining riders tackle, with all well-known to the peloton, especially the four riders who’ve had great success at Amstel Gold Race in recent years, Vollering, Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM).

Niewiadoma, after losing 30 seconds during the time trial, was ecstatic about getting into the “real” racing on stage 4, not quite feeding off the emotions of the crowd in the same way Vollering and her fellow Dutch riders experienced.

“I would say at first I’m looking forward to the stage. I really like this kind of Classics-style racing and we know the course really well. I do believe that, with our team, we’ll find a good chance to get a victory there,” said Niewiadoma pre-race to reporters.

“I feel like tomorrow is more going to be my day, if I were to lose time, I would probably be upset. No big sad feelings about losing time today because that’s what I expected.” 

The Amstel opening loop also opens the race up to a chance of a breakaway, with the inspiration taken from stage winners Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Deceuninck), Emma Norsgaard (Movistar) and Ricarda Bauernfeind (Canyon-SRAM) at last year’s Tour likely prompting each team to try and ensure they get into any move to unseat SD Worx-Protime and Vollering from the top spot.

Stage 4 Climbs

• Bemelerberg (1.3km at 4.9%), cat. 4, km 6.6
• Cauberg (0.7km at 8%), cat. 3, at km 12.8
• Geulhemmerberg (1.1km at 5.1%), cat. 4 at km 17.8
• Bemelerberg (1.3km at 4.9%), cat. 4, km 23.4
• Mont-Theux (2.8km at 5.6%), cat. 3 at km 74.8
• Côte de la Redoute (1.6km at 9.4%), cat. 2 at km 88.8
• Côte des Forges (1.3km at 7.8%), cat 3 at km 99.6 
• Côte de la Roche-Aux-Faucons (1.3km at 11%), cat 2 at km 109.4