Demi Vollering saw too little ambition at SD Worx-Protime: "I wanted to make progress"

In the winter of 2024 to 2025, Demi Vollering switched from SD Worx-Protime to FDJ-SUEZ. In an interview with AD, she now looks back on that move. The European champion explains that she saw too little drive for improvement within the Dutch team.

"I felt like we were hitting a wall," Vollering begins about her time at SD Worx-Protime. "I often asked: ‘What’s the plan to become even more successful?’ And the team would answer: ‘What do you mean? We’re the best women’s team in the world.’ That wasn’t what I was after. I wanted to take steps forward.”

Vollering also felt she was branded as a cold, winning type. That bothered her. "There was a certain image expected of me: that I had to be cold-blooded. Lotte (Kopecky) and Anna (van der Breggen) have very different personalities than I do. That’s okay, but I didn’t want to change myself. I thought: I can be more myself somewhere else.”

FDJ-SUEZ
So Vollering sought out a new environment. She chose FDJ-SUEZ, even though it wasn’t initially her dream team. "Jan (her fiancé and manager Jan de Voogd, ed.) came to me with that team and I thought: no way, I’m not doing a French team. But Jan kept insisting: I still think we should talk to them.”

A conversation followed. "When that online meeting ended, I closed my laptop and immediately felt that spark. That happiness. I had a big smile on my face right away and didn’t even know where it came from. But I knew: this is it. It was that gut feeling I had been searching for so hard and didn’t find with other teams. I was so glad I had waited.”