“That’s how we roll!” shouts Mischa Bredewold into her sports director’s face at the SD Worx-Protime bus in Poitiers. A handful of minutes have passed since her team-mate, Lorena Wiebes, thrashed everyone in the sprint on stage four of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. The victory made it two in two days for the squad, and back-to-back wins for the Dutchwoman. Bredewold and the rest of the squad could not stop smiling. Everything was right in the world.
This time last year, however, the same scene cast a different mood. The best sprinter in the world, Wiebes left the Tour winless, an outcome nobody had predicted. She'd come into the race from winning five out of six stages at the Baloise Ladies Tour. What had gone wrong?
“I just wanted to win so bad that it didn’t work out,” Wiebes now recalls. It’s an easier memory to discuss now, as she sits in another winner’s press conference, back on the top step at the Tour. “I think the thing last year was, of course, the pressure that I also put on myself,” she says.
So, this time round, she decided to flip her approach entirely. No longer would she fixate on getting her arms in the air. She'd still try her hardest in the sprints, but if she didn’t cross the line first, she’d just shrug, smile, and whistle away.
It’s a hard shift to make for a rider who has now collected over 100 victories. But, true to her word, it’s what she did on stage two, when she finished second to Liv AlUla Jayco's Mavi García. “I think for people it’s strange that maybe I’m not frustrated,” she said, non-plussed, at the time. “Everything I achieve here is extra for the season.”
Extra? At the biggest race in the world? Surely there’s more jeopardy than that? “The most important thing was to keep on thinking the season is still good, even if you don’t win in the Tour de France,” Wiebes says.
It’s all part of a “free mindset” that has liberated her at this year’s race. “Now, it’s all fallen into place,” she smiles. “It’s different when you put just the pressure on yourself. Of course, we have some pressure from the team, but it doesn’t feel like you have a lot of pressure from the team.”
Back at the SD Worx-Protime bus, beneath a canopy of leafy trees, the ambiance was like a garden party. Anna van der Breggen, the GC leader, squeezed in to join her team-mate Blanka Vas in an ice bath fit for one person. The pair splashed Lotte Kopecky, who warmed down on the rollers beside them. In return, the world champion flashed back a grin, and threatened to squirt them with her water bottle.
Between high-fives, the team’s sports director, Danny Stam, found a moment of seriousness to reflect on the stage. The lead-out, he said, hadn't “completely worked out”. But the celebrations showed it didn’t matter. “It was planned that Anna should make the lead-out from the bottom, more or less, and then Lotte should take over,” he said.
Instead, Van der Breggen came back to do another turn, and Wiebes found herself isolated on the finishing straight. “I knew it was up to me to find the final position and be able to sprint,” she said. Guided by her free mindset, she blasted along the barrier and clear of Visma-Lease a Bike's Marianne Vos. She flexed her muscles across the line. The victories were flowing again.
“I think, ‘til now, it’s a great season,” Wiebes said – in 38 race days, she has won 16 times. “[20]22 was already a really nice season with the win on the Champs-Élysées, and getting the yellow jersey for a day. But then I think the level of the other wins were not as high as this year. Winning Milan-San Remo was also a big one. I can say I think this is my best season ‘til now.”
With the sprint stages now passed at the Tour de France Femmes, Wiebes can toast a job well done. There will be no winless edition in 2025.
