Team SD Worx dominated the past season in women's cycling. And in a form that had never been seen before. Not even among the men. SD Worx occupied the top four places in the individual rankings and collected more points in the team rankings than the teams in second and third place behind them.
Demi Vollering was the Dutch team's best cyclist, while Lorena Wiebes was the most successful sprinter. No woman is better than Marlen Reusser in the time trial. And then there is world champion Lotte Kopecky, an all-rounder who has enjoyed success on every terrain. This quartet won 14 of 27 races on the Women's World Tour in 2023, with Mischa Bredewold contributing another victory for SD Worx.
And that's not all of the impressive figures from 2023: SD Worx recorded a total of 61 victories and 51 other podium finishes. Movistar, the team with the second most victories, achieved just 20. Never before has there been such dominance in women's cycling. And it has been going on for a few years now. In six of the last seven years, SD Worx or Boels - Dolmans, as the team was called until 2020, was the most successful team. Albeit not to this extreme extent, which in the past season ranged from a double victory at the Tour de France Femmes to the Ardennes Triple of Vollering to five different stage winners and winning the team time trial on a total of six stages of the Thüringen Ladies Tour.
Team SD Worx - Protime: 2024 season opener as usual
And so the question now arises: can it go on like this? The clear answer - it is possible. At the very least, the team, which has been called SD Worx - Protime since January and has gained another eponymous sponsor, is already ahead of the competition in terms of victories at this early stage of the season. The riders in the red and purple jerseys cheered seven times in 2024, which is the annual haul of a third of all WWT teams in 2023. The team did not compete at all in January and therefore did not compete in Australia or Mallorca.
With the UAE Tour everything went as usual at first. Kopecky took the overall classification by winning the queen stage, while Wiebes secured two of the other three stages in the sprint. On the final day, SD Worx made a mistake in the chase, which is why a breakaway reached the finish just a few metres ahead of Wiebes. There were gloomy faces afterwards, but that is also typical of SD Worx when a victory that was actually planned fails to materialise. However, this did not change the team's dominance.
At the Omloop het Nieuwsblad things looked a little different. SD Worx started with three of the four top riders - Reusser was also due to start but had to pull out with the flu. Wiebes, Vollering and Kopecky all finished in the top 10, but none of them were able to win. World champion Kopecky was beaten in the sprint by a group of 36-year-old Marianne Vos and finished second.
Too many leaders, too few helpers?
What would be a huge success for any other WWT team is a defeat for SD Worx. One that is not particularly painful, because the Omloop is certainly not the team's top priority. However, it could very well be a pointer. A hint. An indication that with so much potential to win, it's not always clear who really has the captain's role. A plan B is good, but if there are also plans C and D, the actual best solution, plan A, may lose its focus.
Even the second row of the 16-strong team has something special. Mischa Bredewold is European champion, Niamh Fisher-Black was U23 world champion in 2022. Chantal van den Broek-Blaak, 2017 world champion, is back this season after taking a break to have a baby and has previously won the Omloop and the Tour of Flanders, among others. Elena Cecchini and Barbara Guarischi ride the sprints for Wiebes, but have won victories themselves before this time. In other teams, they could all take on captain roles themselves. SD Worx has a lot of leaders, but hardly any helpers. Is the Dutch team too good to continue to achieve maximum success?
Everyone in the team emphasises in unison that there are no debates about envy, that each captain is happy to support the other in the right situations and that Kopecky, for example, sprints for Wiebes on the flat stages. But what if, as in the Omloop, several rider types have a realistic chance of winning? Is the team then still the unit that is always communicated to the outside world? The rivalry between the managers - it exists. And it can't be argued away. At least between Kopecky and Vollering it is evident from time to time.
Team SD Worx - Protime: Currently only four riders under contract for 2025
The problem may solve itself for the 2025 season. As it stands, only four riders officially have a contract for next year. In addition to the only 2024 newcomer Femke Gerritse, these are Luxembourg's Marie Schreiber, who is only 20 years old and caused a stir last winter, Wiebes, who joined in 2023 and left her old team DSM early with an exit clause - and Kopecky.
The Belgian had extended her contract on a long-term basis in mid-February. Her contract would also have expired at the end of the season. "I'm very happy that I can stay with the team until 2028," she was quoted as saying in a team statement. It is quite possible that the timing of the announcement was no coincidence, as speculation had emerged shortly beforehand during the UAE Tour that Vollering had received an offer of one million euros from UAE Team ADQ. "I didn't really have to hesitate long to sign. If UAE had waved a cheque for a million euros, I would have hesitated," Kopecky later admitted candidly to Het Nieuwsblad to. Vollering or the team she has been associated with have not yet commented on this. The Tour de France Femmes winner is also not talking about staying with SD Worx.
SD Worx: No money for Lotte Kopecky and Demi Vollering
This is what SD-Worx team boss Erwin Janssen, also at Het Nieuwsblad. "If you then ask me how likely it is that Demi Vollering will still be driving for us next season, I will answer that it will be difficult." Money could become the main problem. Although budgets are even less popular in women's cycling, it is clear that SD Worx is the best funded of all the WWT teams. However, it is not clear how many millions are available.
SD Worx, a Belgian human resources service provider, is said to have increased its sponsorship in parallel with the rise of co-name sponsor Protime, a Dutch-Belgian company in the field of electronic time and personnel management, as has bike supplier Specialized. "Sponsorship budgets are rising, but not as fast as salaries or the cost of professionalisation. That's why we also have to make a decision," says Janssen. "Lotte has developed into a world-class rider and is remunerated accordingly. But even we can only spend our budget once."
Sports Director Danny Stam had previously also expressed this view to GCN expressed. "Demi is a key player and of course we want to keep her, but not for a blank cheque and not for a million euros. That's a lot of money, but I don't know if there's really anything to it. I'm their sporting director, not their manager." But Stam also provided another sentence that leaves room for speculation: "It is clear that we want to continue with the most important riders in our team, and if they are happy, we have a chance. If they are not happy, they can leave."
Favourite child Lotte Kopecky?
That sounds a lot like a farewell to Vollering, especially as it is clear between the lines that Kopecky is the favourite child in the top quartet anyway. "Did the fact that SD Worx is a Belgian main sponsor play a role? I think so, but apart from that we wanted to continue with Lotte anyway. She's a girl to our taste, we know what we have in her," says team boss Janssen. Kopecky also commented favourably on her contract extension in a way that seemed quite serious. "I feel very comfortable here, above all I can be who I am in this environment. We are not seen as robots here. Of course we are expected to perform, but not at all costs," she was quoted as saying in the team press release.
With Kopecky and Wiebes, SD Worx has at least retained two key riders for success. Reusser's future is still open, but the chances of Vollering leaving are likely to increase. Both financially and in terms of role allocation. Reusser can also ride for the overall classification, having won the Tour of the Basque Country and the women's Tour de Suisse in 2023.
If Vollering is there, however, it is she who will play first fiddle in the really big races and who has also scored the most and most important victories in 2023. In order to keep the house in order in the future, it would perhaps be the best solution for the Dutch team to give up the top ace but continue with the other three. Especially as there are plenty of talents lurking in Vollering's shadow who are also extending their contracts with greater prospects of achieving their own results. Britain's Anna Shackley (22), for example, second in the Tour de l'Avenir in 2023, Hungarian champion Blanka Vas (22), Fisher-Black, Bredewold and Schreiber.
