WOMEN’S CONTENDERS
SD WORX-PROTIME V THE REST
“Last year they scaled new heights, competing in perfect harmony”
In 2023, Lotte Kopecky and Demi Vollering formed a legendary double act. Between them, they won virtually all of the biggest races on the calendar – Kopecky the World Championships, Tour of Flanders, and green jersey at the Tour de France; Vollering the Strade Bianche, the Ardennes Classics hat-trick, and yellow jersey at the Tour de France. They’re the two best riders in the world, and have elevated the SD Worxprotime team to near-uneatable status.
First paired together on the team in 2022, last year they scaled new heights, competing in perfect harmony to outgun and outmanoeuvre the opposition at every turn. However, at last year’s Strade
Bianche there appeared to be tension between the two. They sprinted against each other in the finale, Vollering taking the win ahead of a visibly upset Kopecky. But concerns about potential internal discord were unequivocally dispelled later in the spring, when they achieved two more one-twos, this time much more harmoniously – first at the Tour of Flanders, which Kopecky won from a long-range attack while Vollering marked wheels and ultimately won the sprint for the runner-up finish, then at Amstel Gold, where the roles were reversed, with Vollering attacking on the Cauberg and Kopecky sprinting for second.
They complement each other perfectly, with Vollering able to use her climbing skills to launch devastating attacks on the uphills and Kopecky packing an almost peerless sprint finish. Yet they’re also both tactically adept and wellrounded enough to win in other ways, and can therefore attack in tandem, ride unpredictably and their rivals off guard.
Neither are they the only riders who make SD Worx-protime such a domineering force. They became even more powerful in 2023 when they signed the fastest sprinter in the world, Lorena Wiebes, who has since become a more complete Classics contender by improving her climbing. And in Marlen Reusser, they have a selfless worker with one of the biggest engines in the peloton, who can also win big herself, as she proved with her mammoth Ghent-wevelgem victory last year. With Kopecky having already won Strade Bianche this year, their success looks set to continue.