VolkerWessels have been one of many standout groups on the Tour of Chongming Island. Though considerably overshadowed by Ceratizit-WNT profitable all three phases and the GC, the Dutch staff had its sprinters Sofie van Rooijen and Scarlett Souren place fourth and fifth on stage 1 in addition to second and third on stage 3, with Souren ending third total to win the white U23 jersey. Van Rooijen was one spot additional down in GC, and Anne Knijnenburg took house the QOM jersey.
“Our plan was to go for the GC by means of the dash finishes and the bonus seconds on the intermediate plan. On stage 2, they selected the incorrect facet of the street within the dash and didn’t get a end result. That meant the GC was gone. However we nonetheless had the white jersey, took the QOM after which tried to win the stage with Scarlett,” defined staff supervisor Raymond Rol to Cyclingnews.
Rol denied hypothesis that the staff had forgone final week’s Simac Women Tour of their house nation within the hunt for UCI factors: “We had three groups for Varese, Simac and the China races, however six of our riders weren’t match for Simac, so we cancelled it. I feel we do essentially the most races of all groups, and the planning was at all times to go to China,” he mentioned.
The VolkerWessels staff was included on early staff lists for the Simac Women Tour earlier than they pulled out. Within the 2024 season, the staff may have completed 112 UCI race days plus a number of Dutch or Belgian non-UCI races, considerably greater than most Girls’s WorldTour groups who’ve lined up between 80 and 100 occasions, with only some groups above the 100 days of racing mark.
The staff is in good spirits because it travels to Guangxi for the ultimate race of the season, the Tour of Guangxi one-day race. Within the UCI rating, they already have been forward of Girls’s WorldTour staff Roland and stand to additionally move Uno-X Mobility as soon as the factors from the Chinese language races (the place the Norwegian staff is not racing) are calculated.
Going into 2024, the staff was solely fifth within the rating of Girls’s Continental Groups, lacking the automated invites and never getting a wildcard for the Tour de France Femmes. This was a tough blow to the staff that (then nonetheless named Parkhotel Valkenburg) has had Demi Vollering, Lorena Wiebes, Mischa Bredewold, Pauliena Rooijakkers, Karlijn Swinkels, and plenty of different WWT riders move by means of its ranks, lacking out on beginning the Dutch Grand Départ.
For 2025, although, the coveted automated invitation to all Girls’s WorldTour races appears nearly safe, with the final remaining hoop to leap by means of being registration within the new Girls’s ProTeam class.
“Hopefully, we can be professional subsequent yr, and with the factors we collected, we may have the wildcard. I am wanting ahead to subsequent yr with the expertise manufacturing unit,” mentioned Rol.
