Was it the ego of Demi Vollering? The complete dysfunction of a Dutch team unwilling – but not unable – to be cooperative? The failure of the other nations to capitalise when the defending champion was cut adrift with just 19km remaining? Whatever it was, the women’s peloton handed a golden plate containing a familiar golden medal to Lotte Kopecky in Zürich on Saturday, allowing the Belgian queen to win a second successive World Championships road race title.
The 194 riders on the startline had one job, one red line if you will, on a miserable wet day in the Swiss city: don’t take Kopecky to the line. The peloton's most versatile rider is an expert at making rivals pay for tactical slip-ups, and only needs a sniff of a possible victory to make it count. Yet, all day, even as the first breakaways hung hopelessly out front, the same words were reverberating around the heads of all: don’t take Kopecky to the line. What did they do? They took Kopecky to the line. The consequence was as predictable as it was avoidable.
The Dutch will perhaps kick themselves the most for giving the defending champion the perfect scenario. With their embarrassment of riches and their collection of superstars, the Netherlands have always been a misfit of a team, a composite of egos and deserving winners in their own right, thrust together under the false pretence of teammates, but in reality working for one and one only: themselves. Frequently it comes good despite a paucity of conformity – five titles in six years until Kopecky stopped their dominance in Glasgow last year – but when it doesn’t, it’s ludicrous and downright barmy. If this were a trade team, heads would roll – but then you realise that it’s merely just a national-level replication of what goes on at SD Worx.
Of the seven Dutch riders, all of them had a go at sticking their hand highest in the air, pitching to be the protagonist. Riejanne Markus, Thalita de Jong, Mischa Bredewold and Pauliena Rooijakkers all infiltrated early breaks, ostensibly satellite riders for the three leaders of Vollering, Marianne Vos and Puck Pieterse, but not so secretly harbouring their own lofty ambitions. The aforementioned quartet, however, were put in their place when the trio of leaders instructed one another to bring back the various breaks.
As the rain continued to team down with just an hour of frantic and uncontrolled racing left, the team in orange found themselves in a favourable position: Markus, eager with endless energy all day, was accompanied by Vos in a break that also included Belgium's Justine Ghekiere and Australia’s Ruby Roseman-Gannon. Vos, with three road titles already and 10 golds across other disciplines, didn’t need another rainbow band , but there she was, showing once again at 37 why she is the undeniable, irreproachable GOAT. Shut it down, girls, and let Vos or Markus win, is how the Dutch message ought to have sounded.
The foursome’s lead reached 1:20, but when the inevitable counterattack from behind came on the final climb of Witikon, the lead group was reshaped: the original four now had Vollering, Liane Lippert and Elisa Longo Borghini as companions. Kopecky, for all she was trying, was sliding backwards, the wheel of Chloé Dygert, also dropped, getting further and further away. With the leading favourite and defending champion distanced, advantage was definitely now with the Dutch, but a lack of cohesion – that thing cycling teams are so good at – saw Dygert and Kopecky, to their astonishment, welcomed back into the fold.
On the final little kicker, Vollering attacked again, successfully managing to distance… Vos and Markus, her two remaining teammates, leaving her with the other five, acutely aware that she was the weakest sprinter left in the pack. If only there was another Dutch rider left who could possibly beat Kopecky in a sprint. Someone like Vos. Hmm. If only. In one stroke, Vollering, hellbent on securing the rainbow bands that so far eludes her, had turned a heavy numerical advantage for the Dutch into an act of sabotage.
Hope still remained when Kopecky initially struggled to respond to Longo Borghini’s attack inside the final five kilometres which Vollering bridged across to, but Kopecky, a maestro in recovering and closing gaps, was not to be outsprinted come the finish line. Had the Dutch showed a smidgen of unity, they almost certainly would have prevented the best all-rounder in the pack from retaining her title. But getting the Dutch to be unified and to play happy families is professional cycling’s most eternal and thankless task. Kopecky is a grateful – and deserving – recipient of their chaos.
