When the Dutch team lined up for the women's road race on Sunday it was the last chance for the nation to claim a road cycling medal at the Paris Olympic Games. While Lorena Wiebes was the leading contender for the squad, the team had some extremely powerful options in their back pocket should the race not play into the sprinter’s hands.
After Wiebes and Tour de France winner Demi Vollering were caught behind when a crash split the peloton, the responsibility to salvage the medal hopes of the Netherlands fell on the capable and experienced shoulders of Marianne Vos, a rider who claimed her first gold medal on the track in Beijing in 2008 and then another in London during the road race in 2012.
