Demi Vollering and Annemiek van Vleuten can get t-shirts made.
Cor Vos
On Sunday, Demi Vollering joined Annemiek van Vleuten in an elite club: winners of all three women’s week-long stage races, La Vuelta Femenina, the Giro d’Italia, and the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
To be fair to the rest of the peloton, the club only formed in 2022 when the Tour de France Femmes was brought to life, so only four women are eligible to apply; of the four Tour de France victors, only Van Vleuten and, as of Sunday, Vollering have taken home pink, red, and yellow jerseys.
The way in which Vollering took her Giro victory was dramatic. In the final stage, one that was fairly tame compared to what the riders were supposed to take on the day before, Vollering looked to be on the back foot. The overall lead of the Italian tour was riding away from the European champion in the form of Antonia Niedermaier, who had attacked with 84 km remaining in the final stage. Vollering found herself in a group with her former teammate-turned-director sportif-turned-rival, Anna van der Breggen.
Demi Vollering claims Giro d’Italia overall title, Elisa Longo Borghini wins final stage
Anna van der Breggen would finish over two minutes behind her rival and drop to third overall.
“Today was all about daring to lose,” Vollering said of the stage. “I let Antonia go away, and I told Anna, ‘I’m fine, second or third doesn’t matter to me, it’s up to you now’. And then I had to try to drop her somewhere, and I really went all-in on that last climb. It was still so long to the finish, but I did it, and I still can’t believe it.”
The tactics were cagey. Vollering had her teammate, Lauren Dickson, who turned out a breakthrough performance in her first week-long race, carrying a bulk of the chasing. Vollering wasn’t going to work if Van der Breggen wasn’t going to work, but the feeling went both ways.
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