Forget Severance or White Lotus, the drama I’m most excited about this year is Demi Vollering vs SD Worx-Protime

It is often difficult to balance expectation with reality. The buildup to the holiday, the party, the gig, is sometimes better than the actual thing itself; this is only natural, and it’s a struggle we all face. This is how I am currently approaching the Women’s WorldTour season, where the promise of a titanic battle between Demi Vollering, now at FDJ-Suez, and her old SD Worx-Protime squad with Lotte Kopecky and her former coach Anna van der Breggen is full of promise and excitement. That’s not even including the rest of the reshuffled peloton, with Marlen Reusser and Cat Ferguson at Movistar, Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig and Kasia Niewiadoma at Canyon-SRAM, and Lidl-Trek’s all stars, plus more.

Before the action kicked off, there was a lot of hype, especially around Vollering’s fresh start. The Dutchwoman tried to play it down ahead of her season debut at Setmana Ciclista Valenciana last week, insisting that she wasn’t out for revenge. However, the hype over the season did seem justified, at first watch anyway; stage one saw Vollering ride Van der Breggen and Reusser off her wheel as she soloed to victory, winning her first race at the first opportunity for FDJ, and also sealing the whole thing overall.

Adam Becket

News editor at Cycling Weekly, Adam brings his weekly opinion on the goings on at the upper echelons of our sport. This piece is part of The Leadout, a newsletter series from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here. As ever, email adam.becket@futurenet.com - should you wish to add anything, or suggest a topic.

Sometimes metaphors seem a bit on the nose, and sometimes real life throws up something like this - Vollering dropping her former coach, who has returned to the sport after three seasons away. It was like an allegory for one generation of Dutch dominance moving on to another, and it happened in front of our eyes. Of course, it isn’t that simple, and Van der Breggen’s performance was promising for her in her first race in 1236 days - she finished third on stage one, and third overall.

That’s remarkable for someone who was on the other side of the barriers for three full years. Vollering won round one, but we are still yet to see Kopecky take to the stage at the same time, something which could feasibly happen as soon as Omloop Het Niewusblad next weekend. If it doesn’t, then the suspense will have to last even longer. The former teammates are very different in terms of ‘rider type’, but they will be targeting largely similar goals this season, in the Classics, and then the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. Every step on this road is ripe for picking apart and analysis, both on a micro and macro level. I suppose this is the expectation, rather than the reality, but I’m so ready to see how the two match up, from the new Milan-San Remo to the end of the Tour in Châtel, and beyond.

Kopecky vs Vollering seems so exciting because they are teammates turned rivals, but even when they were both on SD Worx their relationship seemed to have a veneer of civility over a competitive duel. Now there is no need for the veneer, the competition can very much be in the open. Will Kopecky be able to match Vollering in the mountains? Can Vollering keep up with Kopecky on short, sharp climbs? These are semi-unknowns that we will have to wait and find out.

It is not just this binary, and there is more to the action than that, which just adds to the expectation. Reusser at Movistar will be fascinating, especially now she has moved on from the injury and illness of last year; the duo of Uttrup Ludwig and Niewiadoma could be special, or they could end up touching wheels; Elisa Longo Borghini at UAE Team ADQ will surely change that squad; and Lidl-Trek have a team with so much talent, from Elisa Balsamo to an unshackled Niamh Fisher-Black. There is a lot to look forward to, and the season is only just beginning.

It does seem a world away from men’s cycling and the predictable winners - it feels hard to look past Tadej Pogačar for anything, then there’s Mathieu van der Poel, Jonas Vingegaard, Wout van Aert and Remco Evenepoel. The men’s sport is dominated by a few teams and riders; women’s racing feels the polar opposite, although this is a reductive comparison.

As things stand, I will be glued to my screen for more or less every Women’s WorldTour race here on out. Forget Netflix or Apple TV, it’s TNT that will keep me gripped. To change the Public Enemy song slightly, maybe it’s time to believe the hype.

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