Marlen Reusser has described the tactical duel with Demi Vollering on the slopes of Mont Ventoux as "really stupid from both of us", as the pair let Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney sail away to the stage win and the yellow jersey at the Tour de France Femmes.
Reusser had started the day in yellow and was holding firm as the GC group shrunk to just that leading trio once again on the lower slopes of Ventoux, but when Niewiadoma launched an attack 9.7km from the top, the race flipped tactically.
Vollering put in a series of accelerations that ate into Niewiadoma's slim advantage without ever fully shutting the gap, and as the pair struggled to come to an agreement over collaboration, the 2024 Tour winner managed to steadily grow her advantage.
By the exposed upper slopes, she had almost two minutes in hand, eventually crossing the line 1:16 clear of a late-charging Vollering, and 1:46 clear of fourth-placed Reusser, who had to hand over the yellow jersey to the Polish rider.
"I think it was… honestly I didn’t understand fully… I think the problem was that Demi and me were marking each other too much, really stupid from both of us," Reusser told a small group of reporters, including Cyclingnews and Daniel Benson at the finish.
"Demi kept attacking super hard, I kept telling her 'don’t do this, let’s just ride' because we had Kasia well in sight, we could for sure close it this time, but if we do bing bang, bing bang, we get ourselves a nice portion of lactic acid again and again in the legs and it's becoming harder and harder to ride for both of us.
"It was not too good from us and very good from Kasia."
After the shenanigans in the trees on the lower portion of the climb, Reusser and Vollering appeared to collaborate better on the exposed mountainside beyond Chalet Reynard.
But the gap kept growing from there, with the strong winds that are characteristic of this mountain playing an influential role once again.
"I would say it was then even more in favour of someone who is out [front] like Kasia because of course neither of us wanted to ride crazy with the other in the wheel," Reusser explained.
"At one point I thought 'it’s about every second let’s go', and Demi, I think she held back a little bit there, it think she could… I don’t know. But this, I think, was in favour of someone who is out [front].
Vollering did go on to drop Reusser in the final kilometre, and decisively so, as the 2023 winner went out in search of Niewiadoma. Vollering ended up putting half a minute into Reusser in short order.
Asked what she thought when Vollering attacked her, Reusser said, with a laugh, “I thought fuck it.”
Reusser, having led the race since her stage 4 time trial victory, now drops to third overall with two stages remaining, 39 seconds behind the lead of Niewiadoma and 24 seconds behind second-placed Vollering.
One crucial stage remains, with Sunday's finale in Nice featuring four ascents of Col d’Eze, but Reusser’s hopes of landing the yellow jersey have taken a mighty dent.
"I’m sad. I’m just sad," Reusser said at first.
"I’m a bit disappointed about today because I still somehow believed it was possible," she added later. "But it’s always ‘would, would, would’. And Kasia did it. I’m not so happy. It’s hard. But I gave it everything."
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