Tour de France Femmes 2022: Will other teams regret not taking advantage of Annemiek van Vleuten mechanical?

Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar Team) produced a ride for the ages to put herself in pole position to win the Tour de France Femmes, but will other teams regret not putting time into her when she was struggling with a stomach bug and then had a mechanical.

The 39-year-old broke away with Demi Vollering on the first climb – the Petit Ballon – on a day of 3000m of unprecedented climbing before distancing Vollering a kilometre from the top of the second climb of the day, the Col du Platzerwase.

The show of dominance was all the more remarkable considering Van Vleuten had been beset by a stomach bug during the first couple of stages of the Tour, telling Eurosport after Stage 3 that she had been unable to eat or drink.

She has slowly recovered her legs as the race progressed but showed signs of struggle on Stage 4, where – still feeling the effects of the stomach bug – she was off the back of the peloton and then suffered a mechanical.

And on the latest episode of The Breakaway, Orla Chennaoui put it to Dani Christmas, Adam Blythe and Dani Rowe whether Vollering’s team SD Worx might now regret not putting time into Van Vleuten on that day.

“I would say so, yeah,” said Blythe, referring to the stomach bug.

“As soon as you find out about like tummy bug, get straight into it. I know, it sounds awful. But just try and get her on the backfoot. Don’t wait another day – that’s another day of recovery.

“So I think for sure, they will probably look at it and go, ‘yeah, we should have taken as much time when we could’.”

“They just missed an opportunity. And not just SD Worx.”

Dani Christmas, who at the time questioned the optics of putting time into a rival who had suffered a mechanical, contextualised the debate, adding that a lot of the riders were unaware that van Vleuten was at the back of the peloton.

“I think they didn’t quite know what was happening,” said Christmas.

“There seemed to be a bit of confusion on the road. When we heard from some of the riders they didn’t know that she was dropped.

“But yeah, I think also, I think we mentioned sportswomanship here. Do people wanting to take advantage [of a mechanical]?”

Van Vleuten holds a 3’14” advantage over Vollering ahead of Sunday’s final stage – a 123.3km ride from Lure to La Super Planche des Belles Filles.

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