At the top of Alpe d’Huez, there is a big screen looming over the finish line. We walk towards it as there are just under 10 kilometres to go in the final stage of the Tour de France Femmes. It is flicking between images of Demi Vollering leading the race, pedalling furiously up the mountain towards the summit, and Kasia Niewiadoma behind, chasing desperately to hold on to her yellow jersey. At the end of eight days of racing, we still have no idea who is going to win.
Soigneurs, journalists and photographers stand just beyond the finish line with their necks craned as they look up at the pixelated images above them. No one moves. No one can take their eyes off the race.
The kilometres tick down and still things do not get any clearer. Vollering is leading the GC, and then suddenly Niewiadoma is, and then is Vollering again. It goes on and on like this. Gasps and shouts from the crowds sound out as the time gap dips up and down. Cheers come from different groups depending on what is happening: if it looks like Canyon//SRAM will hold on to yellow then soigneurs dressed in the team’s signature pink gilets begin to let out calls of encouragement. When Vollering starts to put more time into Niewiadoma, the SD Worx-Protime staff members start to point excitedly at the screen. I stand among them and can’t stop watching the television pictures in front of me. There has never been a finish to a Grand Tour like this. Alpe d’Huez is delivering a mesmerising battle. Now, there is one kilometre to go. We still don’t know who is going to win.
We all start to scream at the screen when Vollering opens up her sprint, not sure who or what we’re cheering for but unable to stop ourselves from doing it anyway. She crosses the line and celebrates and then we wait. We wait until the yellow jersey of Niewiadoma emerges from the final switchback and we watch the clock tick down. The Polish rider pushes with everything she has to the finish and once the pain is over she gets off her bike and collapses. She starts to cry as she looks up at the clock and so do most of us watching. The difference, in the end, was four tiny seconds. That's what won Canyon//SRAM the Tour de France.
When the riders have crossed the line, it is normal for journalists to run into the scrum of people, waving microphones in rider’s faces to try and get quotes and reactions out of them. This time, it was different. For a few seconds, the people I stood with didn’t move. We didn’t know where to start – the gravity of what we’d seen felt too big to even begin to try and dissect. It was tense, shocking, emotional, painful, happy and sad all at the same time.
We kicked into action eventually, bounding towards where riders were sprawled exhausted on the tarmac. Vollering and Niewiadoma lay on opposite sides of the road, both with tears rolling down their faces, both for very different reasons. One was heartbroken, devastated that she had given it all and it hadn’t been enough. The other was realising her dream, aware that she had secured a glittering prize. They both embraced their teammates and partners but in different ways. Vollering accepted hugs that seemed to be keeping her from falling back to the ground in devastation, while Niewiadoma gave passionate and excitable embraces that seemed to be holding her down from floating up into the skies with happiness. Two stories, two rivals and one of the biggest emotional rollercoasters those watching on Alpe d’Huez had ever experienced. This is it. This is the power of sport.
In the end one rider won and one rider lost, but the order in which Niewiadoma and Vollering finished is almost secondary to the impact that their battle had on the world of cycling. Race organisers ASO had given them one of the most historic mountains as their theatre and they had delivered with a five-star bill. I’ve rarely seen anything like the grit, fight, passion and unwavering determination each rider showed on the brutal switchbacks of Alpe d’Huez. I have never been in the midst of such heightened, raw emotion that was unleashed when each rider crossed the line. It will take some time to process what happened on the final stage of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes. For now, all we can do is be grateful for the show. To Niewiadoma, to Vollering, to every rider who crossed the line on Sunday afternoon: merci beaucoup.
