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Tour de France Femmes 2024 (August 12th-18th)

Page 13 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
It's the unwritten code GC rivals shouldnt attack the race leader if they're involved in a crash,mechanical,especially one not of their making, you allow them to regain contact because to take a race win on another's misfortune is considered bad form.

Which Kasia knows as this clearly awkward attempt to make peace about the situation showed.

View: https://x.com/MaillotjauneLCL/status/1824090333225054547
With 6k to go, YOU DO NOT WAIT, whether you know yellow was in the crash or not.
 
Lost in France without radios ;)

They both made it over the line not long after Bredewold.

I saw that they had finished, but that didn't mean they weren't hurt. I'm also speculating that maybe Demi also panicked a bit there and could have gotten more help from the teammates that were actually there. Question is how much time she could have made up with more help.

As things stand now, she is definitely still my (and most people's) favourite to win, with Kasia finishing second and Labous third, which is also how the GC would have looked in the first two editions without AVV and Kopecky.
 
In decades of watching Grand Tours I have never seen anything like that! The yellow jersey (and race favourite) riding the last 3km alone and injured, while 2 team members contest the finish up ahead. What were they thinking..........

Certainly will make the bus journey back to the hotel interesting, as well as the next few stages. On TV it also looked like Puck Pieterse was the first person to commiserate with Demi, rather than someone from her team. Where is Netflix when you need it
 
Amateur hour. Its really hard for me to enjoy women's cycling at times because of absolutely baffling tactics from DS and riders, its like they forgot their brains when stepping into a car or on the bike. Vollering isn't just a favorite, she's the huge favorite that will win the bike race 10/10 times without back luck. WTF IS LORENA WIEBES DOING. "I saw something yellow on the ground". Yes, and sorry, but then your stupid ass should slam the goddamn breaks immediately you selfish amateur, holy *** the stupidity. I can't man, what a disgrace that particular rider is to the sport. Goddamn Im angry.

My god. Lorena Wiebes is official the rider I like the least, and I barely know her, but what an absolute shitshow listening to what she had to say after the stage. Im boiling, and Im not a fan of Vollering at all. Classless, clueless, amereurish, selfish and completely out of order! I'd immediately DNS her the next day as a DS, no excuses. Vas is something else, she is in the leading group, okay fine, but the rest should just brake immediately. Even not seeing the crash, you still know something happened and that the yellow jersey is no there anymore, but this girl actually SAW THE FEAKING CRASH AND DECIDES TO NO NOTHING STILL.
 
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Amateur hour. Its really hard for me to enjoy women's cycling at times because of absolutely baffling tactics from DS and riders, its like they forgot their brains when stepping into a car or on the bike. Vollering isn't just a favorite, she's the huge favorite that will win the bike race 10/10 times without back luck. WTF IS LORENA WIEBES DOING. "I saw something yellow on the ground". Yes, and sorry, but then your stupid ass should slam the goddamn breaks immediately you selfish amateur, holy *** the stupidity. I can't man, what a disgrace that particular rider is to the sport. Goddamn Im angry.

My god. Lorena Wiebes is official the rider I like the least, and I barely know her, but what an absolute shitshow listening to what she had to say after the stage. Im boiling, and Im not a fan of Vollering at all. Classless, clueless, amereurish, selfish and complete out of order!
And it seems it was also Wiebes who crashed into Vollering just to make things full circle.
 
Amateur hour. Its really hard for me to enjoy women's cycling at times because of absolutely baffling tactics from DS and riders, its like they forgot their brains when stepping into a car or on the bike. Vollering isn't just a favorite, she's the huge favorite that will win the bike race 10/10 times without back luck. WTF IS LORENA WIEBES DOING. "I saw something yellow on the ground". Yes, and sorry, but then your stupid ass should slam the goddamn breaks immediately you selfish amateur, holy *** the stupidity. I can't man, what a disgrace that particular rider is to the sport. Goddamn Im angry.

Exactly. Was much more entertaining to watch yesterday's Queen Stage 3 in Poland. As for Wiebes, you can't blame her. Apparently, she was blinded by something bright yellow lying on the ground. IMHO that's the organizers fault.

Most importantly, we need to give props to Cannabis-SRAM. Their heightened awareness and exquisite understanding of the universal oneness of existence enabled them to stay out of trouble and land Niewiadoma in the GC lead. That's cycling at its highest level.
 
Amateur hour. Its really hard for me to enjoy women's cycling at times because of absolutely baffling tactics from DS and riders, its like they forgot their brains when stepping into a car or on the bike. Vollering isn't just a favorite, she's the huge favorite that will win the bike race 10/10 times without back luck. WTF IS LORENA WIEBES DOING. "I saw something yellow on the ground". Yes, and sorry, but then your stupid ass should slam the goddamn breaks immediately you selfish amateur, holy *** the stupidity. I can't man, what a disgrace that particular rider is to the sport. Goddamn Im angry.

My god. Lorena Wiebes is official the rider I like the least, and I barely know her, but what an absolute shitshow listening to what she had to say after the stage. Im boiling, and Im not a fan of Vollering at all. Classless, clueless, amereurish, selfish and completely out of order! I'd immediately DNS her the next day as a DS, no excuses. Vas is something else, she is in the leading group, okay fine, but the rest should just brake immediately. Even not seeing the crash, you still know something happened and that the yellow jersey is no there anymore, but this girl actually SAW THE FEAKING CRASH AND DECIDES TO NO NOTHING STILL.
I would say that while I agree with most of the criticisms here, I would not call Lorena Wiebes amateurish. She does whatever earns her most money regardless of morality, and that's very much being a professional.
Exactly. Was much more entertaining to watch yesterday's Queen Stage 3 in Poland. As for Wiebes, you can't blame her. Apparently, she was blinded by something bright yellow lying on the ground. IMHO that's the organizers fault.

Most importantly, we need to give props to Cannabis-SRAM. Their heightened awareness and exquisite understanding of the universal oneness of existence enabled them to stay out of trouble and land Niewiadoma in the GC lead. That's cycling at its highest level.
I'm expecting Kasia to eventually win by a clear margin, I'm gonna guess by about 4:20.
 
With 6k to go, YOU DO NOT WAIT, whether you know yellow was in the crash or not.
You may not be a fan of it, but it is a code that exists between riders thats from 6km to 600km.

You don't take advantage of the race leaders misfortune to gain time on them.

it's just bad form, but sure you can break the code theres no penalty to do so, all fair in love and war, a win is a win, take every advantage you can, however you justify it do so, but CanyonSRAM will be repaid in kind, of that I've no doubt.

Fwiw I don't believe if the positions had been reversed Demi would have done the same as Kasia today, note I don't say SDWorx though
 
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I dont have any problem at all with Canyon going at that point of the race. Its too close to the finish, and had they not went, someone else had. Thats racing.

And sure, you can call what Wiebes did professional as opposed to amateurish, but no matter what its so incredibly classless towards a teammate and countryman (who's the biggest favorite in the yellow jersey, for crying out loud!!) who have helped you on several occasions. Disgusting IMO!
 
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Putting the jokes aside... are we still claiming that the problem at SD Worx was Demi Vollering? The problem is quite clearly in the team car, and the complete inability to set a concrete plan and manage the off-setting demands and targets of the various riders. A great rider does not always a great DS make, and van der Breggen has made some decisions that I'd call questionable at best tactically over her tenure.

I have very mixed feelings about the outcome. I really like Blanka Vas, was gutted for her to miss out on a medal in Paris simply as 4 into 3 don't go, and once it was a three-up sprint for silver she was inevitably going to be the one squeezed out (but she made it close enough to give me hope!), and Vas-Niewiadoma-Lippert is a podium alineation I can very much get behind; however the circumstances are another thing entirely. I've tended to be a proponent of the "racing is on, the unwritten rules are unwritten for a reason, if circumstances are out of the bunch's control (e.g. the tacks on the road in the 2012 Tour) then maybe wait but otherwise, it's a race", but I kinda figured that means, you know, for the other teams, not for the maillot jaune's own team.

And for what? I wonder what prize money Lorena got for her illustrious, glorious 8th place. And to deliver that s**tshow of an interview. JFC, SD Worx gots to get at least some of their ducks in a line before they talk to the press. They didn't hear the crash, apparently... but Wiebes must surely have felt it since she took Vollering out herself before scarpering. We at least know she saw it, since when you're riding along in formation with your team, and one of them is in yellow, and you have reason to believe, since you just collided with something, that there's just been a crash, and you look at the floor and see a bright yellow cyclist-shaped thing in the road, it doesn't occur to you for a moment that it might be the woman in yellow who is your teammate?

Let's remember that Wiebes had to dismount on the Koppenberg last year... and laid her bike across 3/4 of the path to make everybody have to stop, an issue that helped another rider who had had to dismount - Lotte Kopecky - build up what eventually became a winning advantage. She's a wrecking ball whose disregard for those around her has caused several crashes over her career, and while usually this tends to have little lasting effect, it's hardly a surprise to those who've watched her race for a while that she would shrug her shoulders and go on her way. She's kind of like Paul Tracy used to be in Indycar/ChampCar - "the onus is on the other driver to back down because they should know that I won't, so if they don't, there will be an accident". Let's also not forget that the only time that SD Worx have managed to get Kopecky and Vollering truly on the same page in the last year and a half was at Amstel Gold where they could both coexist by wrecking themselves for Lorena Wiebes... who promptly failed to win by delivering the most embarrassing Erik Zabel since, well, Erik Zabel.

But yes, for all the criticism of disharmony in SD Worx, Demi has largely coexisted with almost everybody at least on the bike, with the exception of Kopecky. She's worked her tail off in races where she had every right to demand leadership, like Amstel Gold where she was, you know, the defending champion, for Wiebes. I think I can count the amount of times I remember seeing Wiebes killing herself for her teammates on no hands. Unless you count stages where DSM or SD Worx won in the aftermath of a pileup that Lorena caused.
 
You may not be a fan of it, but it is a code that exists between riders thats from 6km to 600km.

You don't take advantage of the race leaders misfortune to gain time on them.

it's just bad form, but sure you can break the code theres no penalty to do so, all fair in love and war, a win is a win, take every advantage you can, however you justify it do so, but CanyonSRAM will be repaid in kind, of that I've no doubt.

Fwiw I don't believe if the positions had been reversed Demi would have done the same as Kasia today, note I don't say SDWorx though
No such code exists. Some people who benefit from it would like to enforce a norm of waiting for the race leader.
 
I've tended to be a proponent of the "racing is on, the unwritten rules are unwritten for a reason, if circumstances are out of the bunch's control (e.g. the tacks on the road in the 2012 Tour) then maybe wait but otherwise, it's a race", but I kinda figured that means, you know, for the other teams, not for the maillot jaune's own team.
Exactly. And anyone who has ever raced for something that matters would agree
 
I saw that they had finished, but that didn't mean they weren't hurt. I'm also speculating that maybe Demi also panicked a bit there and could have gotten more help from the teammates that were actually there. Question is how much time she could have made up with more help.

As things stand now, she is definitely still my (and most people's) favourite to win, with Kasia finishing second and Labous third, which is also how the GC would have looked in the first two editions without AVV and Kopecky.

No but they finished within a minute after a rider we knew was perfectly fine, Guarischi was almost 5mins further back, they weren't in the medical bulletin, nothing from the team reported injuries that need checking overnight, as some teams have reported.

And tbh it's up to the team, ds,mechanic whoever to calm their lead rider down in those situations if she is panicking, that's kind of their job.

For me I'm just not confident SDworx who even had this crash not been the main focus, completely flubbed their tactics today anyway, why wasnt Wiebes interested in sprints points till later on if the green jersey is a goal, maybe Wiebes doesn't overtake Demi at that point if she hadn't been panicking about the stage win and positioning, why was Demi anywhere near Wiebes if shes being protected to the line etc etc can pull this time gap back without mucking it up more somehow. Head to head Demi beats Kasia, but it's not a head to head contest.

And that's before you consider what the team dynamics are in SDWorx at the moment following this or whats been going on for ages, or that Demi isn't actually injured more than a few abrastions and road rash
 
No such code exists. Some people who benefit from it would like to enforce a norm of waiting for the race leader.
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Kasia saying to Demi she did not want to win the yellow that way on tdff insta. Could have fooled me - there is not waiting and then there is telling Dygert to go full gas. I have no big love for Demi (though I do feel a bit sorry for her for all the *** sdworx puts her through). I quite like Kasia, but I hope Demi smokes her in the mountains. Cheering for sdworx, ugh!
 
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