Demi Vollering won her first race in 2024 in dominant fashion, dropping off her wheel the whole GC group on a steep climb to secure the red leader’s jersey in La Vuelta Femenina Stage 5.
It was the first mountain day in La Vuelta Femenina and a chance for Demi Vollering to score her first win in the 2024 season. Vollering has not done any stage race this Spring and this would be her biggest mountain top finish yet in 2024. The Dutch champion flew on the mighty Tourmalet in the 2023 Tour de France Femmes and is at her best on the longer climbs.
Before the final Jaca climb (2.95 km, 8.47%) one of the stage favourites Gaia Realini unfortunately crashed hard on the descent from Alto del Monasterio de San Juan de la Peña. The Italian finished the race despite her struggles to walk straight after the crash. At the same time as her crash, the peloton split on the descent, but most of the big favourites made the split and the rest of the groups came back together in the valley before Jaca.
Vollering will leave the SD Worx super team after the 2024 season, which is perhaps the reason why her team is not fully supporting her in stages that suit her. Her compatriot Pauliena Rooijakkers worked at the bottom of the climb for her teammate Yara Kastelijn which inadvertently helped Vollering, as she needed the climb to be as hard as possible. With 2 km to go Vollering began pacing the GC group herself as the steep 8.5% gradient was enough to do the damage and shatter the group. Kastelijn and Longo Borghini were the last riders to drop off her wheel with just under 1 km remaining.
Vollering did the climb in 8:56 min, pushing 6.11 ᵉW/Kg. She beat Kastelijn and Longo Borghini by 28 seconds, a large gap on such a short climb but they both did impressive performances themselves, averaging 5.72 ᵉW/Kg and 5.69 ᵉW/Kg. In the 2012 La Vuelta Joaquin Rodriguez beat Chris Froome on the same climb with 6.96 ᵉW/Kg effort and was 1:11 min faster than Vollering but with more draft she would have climbed faster and set an even better climbing time.
Vollering became the new GC leader and is likely going to win her first La Vuelta Femenina after losing it last year to Annemiek van Vleuten due to a tactical mistake early in the race. Vollering might have destroyed her competition on Jaca but also other riders in the Top 10 did impressive climbing performances today. Unfortunately for them, the reigning Tour de France Femmes champion is super strong on hard climbs and will be probably even better on Alpe d'Huez in the Summer.
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Love the women’s climbing content!!