Vollering dominates to win time trial on Stage 3 to take yellow jersey

Defending Tour de France Femmes champion Demi Vollering took a massively impressive, if somewhat surprising, time trial victory to climb 23 places in the general classification into the yellow jersey.

In what was her second stage victory at the Tour after her Stage 7 win on Col du Tourmalet last year, Vollering beat current time trial world champion and Paris 2024 team pursuit gold medallist Chloe Dygert by five seconds with a dominant display in Rotterdam.

Olympic time trial gold medallist Grace Brown (FDJ-SUEZ) suffered a rear puncture which thwarted her stage win hopes, eventually finishing 30th.

Loes Adegeest (FDJ-SUEZ) set an impressive time of 7:30.50 which put her into the hot seat early on in the race.

Many big names were not able to dethrone the Dutchwoman, with the likes of three-time time trial world champion Ellen van Dijk (Lidl-Trek), Olympic road race and team pursuit gold medallist Kristen Faulkner (EF-Oatly-Cannondale) and Olympic time trial silver medallist Anna Henderson (Visma-Lease a Bike) all finishing behind the 28-year-old.

After she set the fastest time at the intermediate time point, time trial specialist Dygert was the rider to take over in the hot seat by 0.17s.

Dygert looked as if she was to be the champion-elect in Rotterdam, but Vollering set the fastest time at the first time point before she backed it up with a five-second victory. Vollering was then immovable from the hot seat, but last year’s white jersey winner Cedrine Kerbaol (CERATIZIT-WNT Pro Cycling Team) put in a huge effort to finish fourth.

Dutch sprinters Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) and Marianne Vos (Visma Lease a Bike) who finished second and third in stage two that morning were the next to set off, but neither were able to reach the marker set by Vollering, and finished seventh and 17th respectively.

Current white jersey wearer Anniina Ahtosalo (Uno-X Mobility) was the penultimate rider to go down the ramp and went on to finish 38th, but retained the young rider classification.

Kool, who led the general classification going into the stage, set off in the yellow skinsuit but was outside of the top 20 at the first time point and eventually finished 33rd as Vollering’s victory was confirmed.

Dygert and Adegeest finished second and third, Faulkner took fifth behind Kerbaol, while Van Dijk beat Wiebes to finish in sixth. The top ten was completed by Vollering’s SD Worx-Protime team-mate Mischa Bredewold, 2023 stage winner Emma Norsgaard (Movistar) and Henderson.

Vollering will wear the yellow jersey going into an exciting stage four from Valkenburg to Liege as the hills begin to ramp up with eight categorised climbs over the 122km route. Comparable with Ardennes Classics races, the stage could be one for the strong one-day racers in the bunch.

With a similar parcours to Amstel Gold and Liege-Bastogne-Liege, the stage could be one that is being eyed up by this year’s winners Vos and Brown. However, they will be under no illusion about Vollering’s strength as a previous winner of both Classics.

Wiebes moved up to second in the general classification followed by Dygert and Adegeest in third and fourth as Kool moved down to fifth, which saw the top five made up of four Dutch riders on the final stage finish in the Netherlands.

Kool will wear the green jersey for the first time since she earned it on the first stage when she takes to the start line in Valkenburg while Vos, who donned the points classification jersey as the holder wore yellow, remains in second.