There was lots of drama at the Tour de France Femmes—both on and off the bike. Thankfully, mostly on. There was the whole ‘bra doping’ thing, which hopefully will never enter the pages of Cycling Media™ again. (Can’t promise, but will try, on our part.) But there were also some strong opinions from the penultimate stage when then-yellow jersey, Kasia Niewiadoma accused Demi Vollering’s teammate, Célia Gery of being a bit sketch.
And although the French champ had plenty to celebrate after the Tour de France Femmes, the 20-year-old French rider also had a difficult few days to process.
Social media being awful, part 15,600,890
Gery was targeted with hateful messages on social media following the very brief controversy involving Niewiadoma on Saturday. Some of the messages reportedly included death threats, according to DirectVelo.
Despite the abuse, Gery returned to racing Sunday and once again played an important role in helping teammate Demi Vollering secure the yellow jersey in Nice.
“I’m really happy, it was so good, a great experience with the victory at the end. It’s the dream scenario,” Gery told DirectVelo after the final stage.
Vollering, who won her second Tour and first with FDJ United-Suez, was particularly concerned about her young teammate.
“She received a lot of disgusting messages. It made me very angry, especially because she is still a young woman and she should have been protected from this kind of stupid actions,” Vollering said.
Gery admitted the experience had been difficult.
“It was really difficult to live yesterday, but hey… That’s it, that’s how it is,” she said.
The emotional release finally came after Vollering’s overall victory.
“Today, it feels really good to finish this way,” Gery said.
It should be noted that Niewiadoma also apologized to the folks at FDJ Suez, and congratulated Vollering on her win. Sometimes in the heat of the moment, certainly at a big race like the Tour, things are said.