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

[Libertine Seguros]

Otoh, would also be quite nice to one day have a women's GT where they final stage can be a procession stage. Because that would mean enough stages to justify it.
As things stand right now; women's GTs just don't have enough stages for that. I would say they would need to be at least 14 stags to even begin considering it.

My desire is Volta a Portugal format, or 12 stages, in the near future (Tuesday to Sunday, rest day, Tuesday to Sunday), with the aim to be 15 stages (two weeks with three weekends) in the long term.

 

[Izzyeviel]

I'm just thankful Demi didn't lose it by four seconds because she slowed down & celebrated going over the line...

 

[memyselfandI]

Demi could still win even if Wiebes crashed her if she decided to maybe help her after crashing her out of the jersey, oh well. Leaves a very sour taste in my mouth when the strongest rider loses like this.

That's stage racing. Not necessarily strongest win, same good luck and bad luck and everything else rules as in boys side of racing happens too. Team members crashing other every once and awhile. And other teams like Trek today racing for minor placings give piggyback rides and stuff..

 

[Skalman]

I was wrong and god damn I'm grateful for it, beautiful ride by Kasia!

 

[Libertine Seguros]

That's stage racing. Not necessarily strongest win, same good luck and bad luck and everything else rules as in boys side of racing happens too. Team members crashing other every once and awhile. And other teams like Trek today racing for minor placings give piggyback rides and stuff..

Sure, but normally if misfortune causes a leader's defeat, it's because the team did everything they could to neutralise that misfortune, not everything they could to compound it.

 

[Sciatic]

Saddest face on podium of a stage winner ever

 

[Keelhaul]

Multiple other factors, though, as when Kasia was isolated with Bradbury dropped and Fisher-Black went to the front, that seemed like the time to force it, and it did work.

As you say, perhaps too well. But the problem is making it more or less a 1-stage race meant people behind had something to fight for still. Other things that had a small effect, but cumulative effects include that Cédrine Kerbaol descended like a demon to rejoin the Kasia group, and then led it down helping them on the descent, that Demi decided to wait for Rooijakkers to collaborate on the flat, slowing herself down on the descent, then got stroppy when Rooijakkers, a dreadful time trialist, turned out not to be that good on the flat, which killed the collaboration between them. Then the fact that they were hanging at a close enough gap that Évita Muzic had enough reason to believe that she could make the podium if one of the riders up front collapsed to collaborate with Kasia meant that she wasn't just doing it all on her own.

I agree on all fronts with this - Demi made a really bad selection and then committed too much energy to it. I really felt like Rooijakkers had two goals: 1/ get the overall win if possible 2/ win the stage. These goals are the same if Vollering creates a large enough gap to Kasia, and frankly, only possible by the work of Vollering. This means the only way likely Rooijakkers can win is if the gap is dangling around the limit, so Vollering needs to go full and spend herself - so zero point in co-operating - only to the extent to bring the gap to the limit again.

The team car of Vollering should have known this and warned her that she will get no real help if she has it, so she shouldn't wait. If she doesn't have it to go all the way alone, she should sit up, get Fisher-Black to hard pace and nuke AdH.

Instead, they reached the breakpoint almost immediately and basically Rooijakkers was contributing just so much as to keep the yellow jersey (the carrot) for Vollering in shooting distance. This messed up the pacing and I think Vollering was quite psyched out by it.

 

[Lequack]

Also what a race by Puck, she really made a great impression.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1825217705474932792

View: https://x.com/LeTourFemmes/status/1825217705474932792

 

[JosefK]

Demi was the strongest rider and raced hard enough and with enough heart to have deserved the win. But this is the Tour, and time and chance happen to all. Not sure I've ever seen a rider in yellow fight back like Kasia to hold on. I was sure she had lost it on the penultimate climb. But there was no quit. And it was for all the marbles on the most iconic stage. Chapeau.

 

[Valv.Piti]

That's stage racing. Not necessarily strongest win, same good luck and bad luck and everything else rules as in boys side of racing happens too. Team members crashing other every once and awhile. And other teams like Trek today racing for minor placings give piggyback rides and stuff..

Thats not stage racing bro. Show me a race where your team crashes you out of the jersey and actively chooses to not help you.

 

[memyselfandI]

This was an amazing watch, but the tactics were really sus to me and the long range attack from Demi didn't really do anything other than burn a lot of energy. I'm pretty sure she would've been capable of creating a similar gap if she nukes it at the bottom of AdH. Being separated only with Rooijakkers and creating a seemingly sufficient gap right away was a death sentence to cooperation IMO.

This very true, but it's the decision she and team made.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Saddest face on podium of a stage winner ever

Can't wait to see how Anna VDB is integrated into the péloton next season. I'm sure she and Demi will get on just as famously as they did back in 2021.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Can't wait to see how Anna VDB is integrated into the péloton next season.

Let's see if she dares to ride next to Demi after this. It could be a short comeback, if Demi throws another punch

 

[yaco]

Yep.

Kasia's most important domestiques in the race, in order:

1) Lorena Wiebes
2) Danny Stam
3) Anna van der Breggen
4) Lucinda Brand
5) Évita Muzic

Not to be critical of the Canyon team, they did everything they could for her, but when Neve Bradbury was dropped before the big move on Glandon I thought there was no chance Kasia could defend from there, but she got some crucial allies in the forms of those others, without whom she wouldn't have been able to hold on.

And she wouldn't have been in the position to hold on if it weren't for the first three.

You forget Gigante who pulled the group for the last 2kms of Glannon.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Also once again chapeau to Ghekiere. Sadly she didn't have much luck in the Vuelta, but winning the QOM in the other two GT-ish races is a great accomplishment.

 

[awavey]

That's stage racing. Not necessarily strongest win, same good luck and bad luck and everything else rules as in boys side of racing happens too. Team members crashing other every once and awhile. And other teams like Trek today racing for minor placings give piggyback rides and stuff..

No but you like to look at races like this and still say the best rider overall won, not well the best rider was taken out by her own team.

doesnt take anything away from Kasia, who alone of the other GC contenders, actually contended for the victory. I mean seriously what does it say when Rooijakkers could have won today. I know Lidl Trek lost ELB, but where was everyone else ?

But if SDWorx play this race like a normal race team, they win 99 times out of 100. And this wasn't the 1 time they should have lost.

 

[yaco]

Also once again chapeau to Ghekiere. Sadly she didn't have much luck in the Vuelta, but winning the QOM in the other two GT-ish races is a great accomplishment.

This may be the future for Gigante. As she can't descend to save her life, the KOM may be the way to go because she was climbing well at the TDF.

 

[dobrien]

That's stage racing. Not necessarily strongest win, same good luck and bad luck and everything else rules as in boys side of racing happens too. Team members crashing other every once and awhile. And other teams like Trek today racing for minor placings give piggyback rides and stuff..

What you're saying is true, but SD absolutely and utterly failed in their duty to protect the yellow jersey in the event of 'bad luck'; that is something that the team COULD HAVE had under their control and they 100% dropped the ball. This loss is squarely on SD, not Demi.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Demi was the strongest rider and raced hard enough and with enough heart to have deserved the win. But this is the Tour, and time and chance happen to all. Not sure I've ever seen a rider in yellow fight back like Kasia to hold on. I was sure she had lost it on the penultimate climb. But there was no quit. And it was for all the marbles on the most iconic stage. Chapeau.

It was an amazing stage, because every moving part in the story had positives and negatives; whether you like or dislike the riders, you can't help but admire the guts and grinta it took for Kasia to hold on from a position that looked totally doomed; you can't help but feel bad for Demi to fall short by so little after being put in a position she didn't deserve to be in - even if during her pursuit of rectifying the unfair disadvantage she'd been given, she would sacrifice a lot of that goodwill with her actions on the way - only for Rooijakkers, the plucky underdog, to sacrifice a lot of her own goodwill in response. No matter what outcome it gave, there would be somebody you'd feel happy for and somebody you felt sorry for. It was mano a mano, but it wasn't mano a mano. The teams meant nothing to the outcome, but they completely defined the outcome. So many stories all intertwined, and all being resolved at once, but changing as to the expected outcome several times on the way.

 

[Didinho]

Yep.

Kasia's most important domestiques in the race, in order:

1) Lorena Wiebes
2) Danny Stam
3) Anna van der Breggen
4) Lucinda Brand
5) Évita Muzic

Not to be critical of the Canyon team, they did everything they could for her, but when Neve Bradbury was dropped before the big move on Glandon I thought there was no chance Kasia could defend from there, but she got some crucial allies in the forms of those others, without whom she wouldn't have been able to hold on.

And she wouldn't have been in the position to hold on if it weren't for the first three.

And wasn’t it Dygert who pulled her group after Demi crashed? To gain as much as possible.

 

[yaco]

FDJ learnt their lesson when they threw away Brown's 2022 TOB when they got too greedy on the last stage and ELB did the miracle bunch sprint. They now ride cohesively as a team and will give Vollering full support.

 

[awavey]

This very true, but it's the decision she and team made.

Tbf we don't know that, there's enough prior evidence to suggest the team and her aren't on the same wavelength with regards to their tactics

 

[Sciatic]

Demi was the strongest rider and raced hard enough and with enough heart to have deserved the win. But this is the Tour, and time and chance happen to all. Not sure I've ever seen a rider in yellow fight back like Kasia to hold on. I was sure she had lost it on the penultimate climb. But there was no quit. And it was for all the marbles on the most iconic stage. Chapeau.

From what she said in her interview, it sounded like she thought she had lost it then as well, but took time to compose herself and get her body and mind back on track.

 

[memyselfandI]

Thats not stage racing bro. Show me a race where your team crashes you out of the jersey and actively chooses to not help you.

Well can't say straight away but I think that in women's racing everything tactically is not possible, because teams sometimes don't have legs to do all tactical case by case scenarios that your typical above median GT WT men's team can.

SD Works is kinda UAE of women's racing at the moment but still. Mistake that they made was not that easy to bring back.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

This may be the future for Gigante. As she can't descend to save her life, the KOM may be the way to go because she was climbing well at the TDF.

If she can avoid set backs through a whole season, then I don't think it will be impossible to podium a GT-ish race in the future. But she obviously needs a devoted team to help her. Not that it was wrong for AGI-S to target other stuff here.