Demi Vollering wins the European Cycling Championships in Slovenia
A week after her world title, the Dutchwoman achieved the double by winning the European Championships alone.
Quick Look
- A week after her world title, Dutchwoman Demi Vollering won the European Cycling Championships in Slovenia.
- She won alone in front of Puck Pieterse and Marlen Reusser, becoming the first to achieve the World-Europe double in the same year.
AI-generated summary
Why It Matters
Demi Vollering won the world title a week before this European victory. She is the first runner to achieve the World-European Championship double in the same year.
Insatiable Demi Vollering. A week after her title as world champion, the 29-year-old Dutchwoman won the European Championships this Saturday, in Slovenia, alone and without having been worried by her rivals. His second continental coronation. She is ahead of her compatriot Puck Pieterse and Marlen Reuser. First Frenchwoman, Juliette Berthet finished seventh.
After the Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Tour of Italy, the Tour de France and the Worlds, the rider, almost 30 years old, further enriched her extraordinary record this season, leaving everyone behind in the final climb (2.1 kilometers at 10.4%), placed 15 kilometers from the finish, where she beat Pieterse and Reusser. Since the establishment of this European meeting 10 years ago, Vollering is the first to achieve the World-European Championship double in the same year.
Saturday, on a relatively flat course of 130.4 km, between Ljubljana and Sencur, the scenario was not fundamentally different from that of Montreal, but the Dutchwoman, rainbow jersey on her back, appeared even more dominant.
After the breakneck pace led by her compatriot Puck Pieterse, she attacked 14.5 kilometers from the finish and no one was able to follow her, not even the Polish Kasia Niewiadoma, her most serious rival, who even fell in the final and was unable to challenge her chance for the podium. In less than a kilometer from the finish, Demi Vollering, who traditionally races for the French team FDJ-Suez, had already made a gap of around thirty seconds and then controlled the distance with her pursuers.
Cited among the outsiders, Frenchwoman Juliette Berthet was once again a little short in the final. Dropped by Puck Pieterse's train on the last climb, she crossed the line in seventh position.
Open Questions
- How serious is Kasia Niewiadoma's injury after her fall?
