Demi Vollering was crowned champion of this year’s Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift on Sunday after she bested rivals in a finale that was all tension and intrigue from start to finish.
The Dutch rider from FDJ United-Suez takes home her second Tour de France Femmes title, following her first in 2023.
The victory also follows her dominance at the Giro d’Italia earlier in June when she became only the second female rider to have won all three Grand Tours after Annemiek van Vleuten.
Tensions rise in battle for Tour crown
The best of women’s cycling went head-to-head in nine stages from Switzerland to France, riding a total of 1,175 kilometres that included the famous and gruelling Mount Ventoux.
Team SD Worx – Protime’s Lorena Wiebes claimed an early advantage in the first two stages of the Tour, until Sigrid Ytterhus Haugset of Uno-X Mobility snatched the lead from her in a stunning solo attack 88 kilometres ahead of the finish line in stage three.
Movistar Team’s Marlen Reusser, the 2025 World Time Trial champion, then rode a commanding TT performance in stage four that put her in the GC lead.
Reusser wore the yellow jersey for three continuous stages, fighting to keep the gap between her and Vollering unmoved at 12 seconds.
The GC rankings were, however, shaken in stage seven, where a finale in Mount Ventoux saw Kasia Niewiadoma Phinney of Canyon//SRAM not only win the stage but also the overall lead.
Niewiadoma Phinney tried to defend the yellow jersey, but Vollering’s prowess proved too much after the Dutch rider left everyone to snatch both stage eight and the lead.
Tensions also rose after stage eight when Niewiadoma Phinney confronted Vollering’s teammate Celia Gery, whom she accused of blocking her during the race on Saturday.
Vollering came in defence of Gery when asked about the incident by TNT Sports , saying Niewiadoma Phinney’s attack on her teammate was “not so fair” amid high emotions.
By the time stage eight finished, Vollering only had an eight-second gap with her closest rival Niewiadoma Phinney, which meant the battle for the crown was far from over.
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Showdown at Nice
The Tour de France Femmes headed into stage nine with no clear GC winner, raising the stakes at the explosive finale in Nice.
UAE Team L’Imad set a high pace in the first climb to the Col d’Èze, with some riders trying to launch attacks and thinning out the peloton
Zoe Backstedt of Canyon//SRAM then led the peloton in the second climb to the Col d’Èze, which reduced the group to 11 riders, most of which were favourites for the podium spots.
Lidl-Trek’s Isabella Holmgren then attacked 6.5km from the summit during the third climb, though the group of favourites tightly rode together with a gap of one minute and 10 seconds behind Holmgren.
The situation further exploded in the fourth and final climb when Niewiadoma-Phinney’s teammate Antonia Niedermaier upped the pace, bridging the gap with Homlgren and setting up Niewiadoma-Phinney for an attack.
But Vollering sat on her rival’s wheel when she attempted to ride away, refusing to let her go – until Vollering herself produced a stunning acceleration that cracked Niewiadoma-Phinney 800 metres from the summit.
Vollering extended the gap with all her rivals and never looked back, reaching the finish line as the Tour’s 2026 champion.
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Vollering and FDJ United-Suez fight for ‘deserved’ win
“I thought about how much work has gone into this victory. I thought about the people who have been behind me, working like the people from Specialized who built my new bike,” she said after the race.
“The people I have around… It’s not only the dream of winning the Tour de France. It’s also the dream of living this life, of working hard along with passionate people. That’s the whole dream.
“I wanted to make clear that we as a team deserve to win this beautiful Tour de France Femmes. We are humble, and we are proud.”
Vollering also gave FDJ-United Suez the chance to become the first French team to win the race.
Niewiadoma-Phinney secured the overall second, while Elisa Longo Borghini of UAE Team L’Imad completed the podium in third, taking the spot once held by Reusser after she was dropped on a climb and then crashed on a descent in stage nine.
A Tour to forget for Visma’s Pauline Ferrand-Prévot
Meanwhile, it was a Grand Tour to forget for Visma Lease-a-Bike, whose Tour de France Femmes defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot cracked during the previous stages before eventually abandoning the race on Saturday due to illness.
“Hard decision because I was really looking forward to racing on my training roads, but making choices is a part of life and rarely easy,” she said in a social media post, where she also acknowledged she never quite reached the level she had hoped for this year.
Thanking fans for their support, she had no regrets for what transpired at the Tour.
“I have no regrets as I gave my best everyday.”
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