Vollering clinches first Vuelta Femenina title in style with Stage 8 victory

Demi Vollering won the 2024 La Vuelta Fememina in style with a dominant victory on Stage 8.

Having come into the final stage of the race leading the general classification, the SD Worx–Protime rider showed no nerves as she navigated the final summit. After she made a move in the final 6km, Vollering powered to the line for a solo victory which confirmed the return of her stage racing form.

This year’s La Vuelta Femenina crowned six different stage winners. On Stage 1, Gaia Realini (Lidl – Trek) was crowned the first winner of the 2024 edition after the team time trial.

The following day, Alison Jackson (EF Education-Cannondale) took the team’s first of two stage victories in a strong sprint before Kristen Faulkner added their second as she stormed to a solo win on Stage 4.

Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) was victorious in Stages 3 and 7, the second of which saw her become the first woman to win four La Vuelta Femenina stages having won on two consecutive days in the 2023 edition. Her Stage 3 triumph marked her 252nd career win, 18 years to the day since her first, before she added her 253rd four days later.

Évita Muzic (FDJ – SUEZ) out-sprinted Vollering on Stage 6, adding a Vuelta stage win to her Giro d’Italia Stage 9 victory in 2020 alongside the further three career wins in her palmarès to date.

Vollering soared to her first victory of the year on Stage 5 to take the lead in the general classification, which she retained for the remainder of the Vuelta and completed in style with her Stage 8 solo victory.

Having finished second in all three classifications in 2023, Vollering additionally took the Queen of the Mountains jersey in 2024 alongside the general classification, which was sealed with points gained in her summit win.

Vos won the points classification for the second year in a row, and Vollering’s second place made it the same top-two finish as the year before. An impressive Vuelta from Vos’s Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Riejanne Markus saw her take second in the general classification and third in the points classification; an improvement from fifth in 2023.

A 13-rider breakaway held a lead of over a minute on the peloton with 45km to go, but multiple riders were dropped as the pressure increased.

Queen of the Mountains leader going into the stage, Karlijn Swinkels (UAE Team ADQ), was the rider who managed to stay clear for the longest time out of those involved in the initial breakaway, but she too was caught just before the summit of the first climb as Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck) bridged the gap.

Rooijakkers’ attack saw her go clear from the chase group and surpass Swinkels to create a gap of her own, but she too was caught 1km before the summit.

With the front group now back together, it was Muzic who took the maximum points on the first categorised climb of Puerto de la Morcuera, followed by Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Deceuninck), Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon//SRAM Racing), Vollering, and Ricarda Bauernfeind (Canyon//SRAM Racing).

After taking fifth on the climb, Bauernfeind distanced the bunch on the descent but Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) led the chase to close her down.

Swinkels attacked with 19km left ahead of her, no doubt hoping to retain her QoM jersey with her eyes on the points at the summit of the final climb. She remained ahead to pass the intermediate sprint solo, and worked up a gap of over a minute in the kilometres which followed.

Grace Brown (FDJ-SUEZ) who had a spectacular La Vuelta Femenina 2024, led the group to catch the solo rider with 9.2km remaining, and kept the pace at the front of the race as they went into the final 7km.

Vollering moved to the front to take over from Brown in the final 6.5km, but staged her final punishing attack with 5.8km left.

Having dropped the few riders who had managed to stay with her, the Dutch national champion and Tour de France 2023 winner powered up the road and stayed clear for the remainder of the race.

As the road flattened out she flew towards the finish line in Valdesqui after the climb named in memoriam for young Spanish rider Estela Domínguez who was tragically killed in 2023.

Vollering took the Queen stage and with it was crowned as the 2024 La Vuelta Femenina champion with a solo victory which gave her time to celebrate with the crowd before she held up her bike after she crossed the finish line.

Muzic followed in second 29” later before Markus’s third-place finish moved her up to second in the general classification.

Rooijakkers, Bauernfeind, and Labous finished fourth, fifth, and sixth before Longo Borghini, Niedermaier, Kastelijn, and Kim Cadzow (EF Education-Cannondale) completed the final-stage top ten in the 2024 La Vuelta Femenina.