Demi Vollering may have taken her first victory at Amstel Gold Race but it was one of ten wins for her team, SD Worx, so far this spring, the story of which has been the so-called ‘second group syndrome’ that has plagued the women’s peloton and effectively neutralized so many races.
Once a solo move has been launched, generally by an SD Worx rider, the group behind falter, looking at each other and taking stock of who is there. If another SD Worx leader or a sprinter is present then you can kiss goodbye to a cohesive chase.
It’s not always an SD Worx rider up the road, however. But if it isn’t, then it’s an SD Worx rider chasing. We saw it with Kristen Faulkner in today’s race who, were it not for the efforts of Lorena Wiebes, would have been allowed to go on the same marauding style of attack that we saw from her at Strade Bianche. It is telling that it was Wiebes, an SD Worx rider, who closed Faulkner down.
While plenty of riders and teams were active throughout the race at Amstel – including Canyon-SRAM who truly threw the kitchen sink with multiple attacks from Elise Chabbey, Kasia Niewiadoma, and Soraya Paladin – when it came to the crunch, and an SD Worx attack, the second group resorted to their old ways.
To their credit – unlike at Paris-Roubaix the week before – SD Worx’s tactics were spot on. Using their numbers to soften the peloton with moves from the likes of Mischa Bredewold before launching the big guns, Vollering and Kopecky.
Sitting on the back of the select group that went away on the final ascent of the Cauberg while Liane Lippert drove the pace, Demi Vollering looked ominously comfortable, as did Kopecky. As the climb flattened out slightly Lippert sat up and looked around and Riejanne Markus, who had been on her wheel, moved across the road. At that moment, Vollering launched, leaving it to a worn-out Lippert to try and follow.
Lippert and Markus, as well as Kasia Niewiadoma made an effort to chase but it wasn’t long before they were looking around, freewheeling – not the most effective method of chasing a rider like Vollering down. Unsurprisingly, this allowed a third group on the road to catch up to them including pre-race favorites such as Silvia Persico and Shirin van Anrooij.
Eventually, Riejanne Markus took the initiative and fully committed to chasing Vollering down but it was too late, Vollering already had enough of a gap to look around, shake her head in disbelief, and sit up to celebrate as she crossed the line. For the sixth time so far this year, it was a battle for second-place behind an SD Worx solo victory.
It has become such a recurring theme that riders from other teams (whether they like it or not) are being asked about it in nearly every interview.
“It’s sometimes a bit frustrating. Just because then sometimes then I just say like ‘why are we racing for a second place instead of just for the win?’” Shirin van Anrooij told CyclingTips on Friday.
It’s a great question, the answer to which only Riejanne Markus seemed to grasp, albeit too late, at Amstel. If the win is up the road, you can’t look around you and let the prospect of a sprint against a Lotte Kopecky or Lorena Wiebes thwart a chase – you might lose either way, but you certainly can’t win if there’s another rider ahead.
Van Anrooij’s Trek-Segafredo team is one of few squads who have grasped this in recent races, working together and trying to rally a chase: “I think we just need to keep trying and maybe at some point other teams will start helping us as well,” she said.
It’s not as though teams aren’t wise to SD Worx’s tactics.
SD Worx has shown its cards, but they still keep winning with the same hand thanks mostly to hesitation from others. It is also true that the Dutch squad has the strongest line-up right now, and it would be unfair not to point out the role that has in their current dominance, but they are by no means unbeatable.
The SD Worx strength is the very reason why, in face of a full-blown attack from a rider like Vollering there is no room for hesitation, or worrying about whichever teammates she has in the group. Riders aren’t willing to chase one SD Worx rider to risk losing to another, but within that same mentality they lose the race regardless.
With the previously dominant Annemiek van Vleuten not in her usual form, Demi Vollering is closing in on an Ardennes clean sweep if others don’t react to these, now entirely predictable, moves.
Even the absence of Kopecky – who will now head to Canada to race on the track – won’t make life easier for the rest of the peloton as the powerhouse that is Marlen Reusser will return to racing for Flèche and Liège.
Part of the reason that Alison Jackson’s Paris Roubaix win felt so exciting was that it was a refreshing change from the procession of wins from one, dominant team. While Paris-Roubaix is an entirely different, unpredictable beast, when it comes to tactics, it was still living proof that it’s possible for other teams to come out on top against SD Worx if they work together to do so.
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