spoiler
Kasia Niewiadoma won the 2024 women’s Tour de France by four seconds, the narrowest margin in the history of either the women’s or men’s race, clinging on to the yellow jersey, despite an Alpine assault from the defending champion, Demi Vollering.
On Saturday afternoon, a defiant Niewiadoma had said: “I lost four seconds, so that’s nothing,” after Vollering had picked up that much via time bonus. Twenty-four hours later, though, for the Pole and her Canyon-SRAM team, four precious seconds at the top of Alpe d’Huez meant everything.
“Four seconds seem to be magical now,” she said. “Throughout my whole career there were so many times I missed out on victories. I feel like this week was perfect for me and my team. To be able to win big races, you need everything on your side.”
Patrick Broe on the Lanterne Rouge compared it to if Jonas Vingegaard had a crash and Visma had Christophe Laporte there but didn’t drop him back to ride for him. That would never happen, literally no one thinks that would be okay, and yet SD Worx did just that with the best stage-racer in the peloton.
As for the Alpe d’Huez climb, I think Evita Muzic was trying to get on the podium, FDJ rode so hard all week for seemingly no reason, I think they thought they coudl put Muzic on the podium on Sunday. Unfortunately for her, Rooijakkers was getting a magic carpet ride on the wheel of Vollering, and Muzic was a minute and a half back, so all she did was give Niewiadoma a free ride. By that point she and her DS in the car had to have known the gaps, and she should have attacked and broken the elastic, or if she couldn’t, then wait in Niewiadoma’s wheel and then snap like she did at the end.
It’s crazy how much Pauliena Rooijakkers decided the ultimate outcome of this race, her presence arguably slowed Vollering’s descent enough to let Lucinda Brand come back and give the chasers a train ride across the valley to the base of the Alpe. Wild, exciting racing, way more exciting than the men’s races this year, to be honest.
I don’t know if SD Worx’s dsyfunction rises to that level, but truly that is the standard to which all terrible team dynamics should be held. And even then, Visma patched it up before the end and at least got to stand there smiling with the win. SD Worx didn’t even manage to do that.
Vollering slowed Vollering’s descent in fairness. She didn’t have to (shouldn’t have?) wait up. I love that even after the fact I couldn’t tell you which choices were mistakes for sure. Absolute knife edge stuff.