Despite winning the stage with Blanca Vas, disaster struck for SD Walks Protime in the last 6.3km of stage 5 of the Tour de France Femme.

For more than 90% of the stage, which went from Belgium to France for the first time this year, Vollaring and SD Walks Pro Time were satisfied with their progress, as Vollaring stayed out of trouble, allowing the other riders to chase the three riders on the all-important breakaway Id.

However, with 7km to go to Amneville, Vollering crashed on the left side at high speed. Vollering's teammate Misha Bredewald was critical of the course design.

“This roundabout is very dangerous, and with all due respect to the organization, I'm not happy with that one because of the corner after the roundabout,” Bredewald told reporters, including Cycling News, at the finish line. [He was] going 65 km/h or something like that. It was such a tight corner and there was no sign. I mean, I was in the lead and I almost crashed. [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] With 5 km to go, Mischa arrived with 3.5 km to go.

Stamm also had no doubts that Canyon SRAM, along with Chloe Diggart, had opened a time gap on Vollering with a few kilometers to go.

“It's a race. I don't know if Demi was aware of the crash or not. It's a final, everyone runs for themselves and I think that's normal,” said Stamm of the German side.

“With 50km (to go) you might be able to predict it, but not with 4km to go. For me, there's no hard feelings.”

“It's not nice to lose the yellow jersey in this way. If you lose and get dropped, that's a different way. But this is bittersweet.”

The gap now stands at 1:19, but the loss of the yellow means that SD Volkswagen Pro Time will no longer require Volering to appear in the post-stage media and press conferences, and the team will have less attention at the controls. With three stages remaining and Volering's best terrain ahead, perhaps the fact that she will be racing on tarmac (pavement) could be a silver lining. [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...]