‘Really stupid from both of us’ – Marlen Reusser regrets mark-out tactics with Demi Vollering as yellow jersey sails away at Tour de France Femmes

Vollering put in a series of accelerations that ate into Niewiadoma’s slim advantage without ever fully shutting the gap, and as the pair struggled to come to an agreement over collaboration, the 2024 Tour winner managed to steadily grow her advantage.

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By the exposed upper slopes, she had almost two minutes in hand, eventually crossing the line 1:16 clear of a late-charging Vollering, and 1:46 clear of fourth-placed Reusser, who had to hand over the yellow jersey to the Polish rider.

“I think it was… honestly I didn’t understand fully… I think the problem was that Demi and me were marking each other too much, really stupid from both of us,” Reusser told a group of reporters at the finish.

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“Demi kept attacking super hard, I kept telling her ‘don’t do this, let’s just ride’ because we had Kasia well in sight, we could for sure close it this time, but if we do bing bang, bing bang, we get ourselves a nice portion of lactic acid again and again in the legs and it’s becoming harder and harder to ride for both of us.

“It was not too good from us and very good from Kasia.”

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