The Pole unleashed a phenomenal ride up Ventoux<\/a>, capitalizing on her rivals\u2019 hesitation to win by 1:16 and leapfrog into the yellow jersey.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2288638622-scaled-e1786174276519.jpg\")
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\n (Nicolas Tucat \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Delcourt called it an \u201camazing performance for women\u2019s cycling\u201d and \u201creally beautiful,\u201d but behind his composed words before the next stage hid a chaos that had been unleashed the night before.<\/p>\n
FDJ Suez had been aiming for the yellow jersey since Lausanne and couldn\u2019t hide their frustration at it evading them. With only two stages left to race and 15 seconds to close on a fierce rival \u2014 something had to change.<\/p>\n
The next day the stage profile was engineered towards a breakaway, and there were very few climbs where a GC battle could take place. The route gradually ascended with two categorised climbs in the first half, but the final 95km were largely downhill.<\/p>\n
\u201cYesterday (Friday) night I was really a pain in the ass for the sports director and the coach,\u201d Delcourt said. \u201c I said to them, \u2018We need to search something, we need to analyze every meter of the f***ing final\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cI searched all the info about the last steep part because I was thinking that it\u2019s not on the route, but there is something. I called all the people that I know on that, who told me, \u2018Oh there is that, it\u2019s dangerous\u2019. I called the organizers to be sure they can guarantee the safety part.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd after I said to the coach, \u2018Tell me how we can do this with strategy and data\u2019. We put all in every corner, who we need to be at this place, how many we need to push.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2289089581-scaled.jpg\")
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\n (Nicolas Tucat \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
It was a military operation, and the gloves were off. \u201cIt was the first time from the beginning that I spoke during the briefing, I told them that I want no limits, I want 100 percent dedication and everything to raise up,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause if we stay at these levels, we have no chance to win. That\u2019s it. We need to really, really step up.\u201d<\/p>\n
And they did. Vollering tested Elisa Longo Borghini and Niewiadoma-Phinney with multiple attacks from 6.7 km out. The pair initially responded, but with 5.5 km to go the Dutchwoman went solo.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that is Demi Vollering, she needed to (attack) a third time and when she has one meter, two meters, she\u2019s on a mission,\u201d Delcourt said. \u201cYou can look at her face, she is not the same. It\u2019s like she has 14 legs.\u201d<\/p>\n
FDJ Suez had driven themselves into the yellow jersey for the first time, but that was when the rivalry took flight beyond the roads. Niewiadoma-Phinney approached domestique C\u00e9lia Gery at the finish line to accuse her of boxing her into the barriers, leaving her unable to follow Vollering\u2019s attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe (Gery) got a lot of nasty messages, that makes me always very angry, especially because she\u2019s such a young girl still and we should always protect young people,\u201d the FDJ Suez leader said.<\/p>\n
Enter 2024, as Vollering pulled up a crucial moment in Niewiadoma-Phinney\u2019s Tour de France Femmes win to compare fair play \u2014 when the Pole capitalized on the Dutchwoman crashing in the yellow jersey.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo years ago when I was on the ground in this crash she was the one who pulled full gas with her teammate to the finish line and I never blamed her for that because that\u2019s racing,\u201d Vollering told reporters. \u201cI was very disappointed as well and I also lost in that moment my respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
If there was not enough action on the roads, the edge provided by the teams\u2019 dispute stoked the final stage\u2019s jeopardy \u2014 it had turned personal. Only eight seconds stood between the pair, with Reusser close by at 1:12 down.<\/p>\n
The Swiss rider, however, crashed on the second of four Col d\u2019\u00c8ze descents \u2014 ruling her out completely of contention. By Canyon-SRAM\u2019s measure, at least, this changed the stage.<\/p>\n
\u201c(It was) not good for the race and the tactics, and not for Marlen but also not good for us,\u201d directeur sportif Rolf Aldag said. \u201cWe wanted to have a hard race start to finish but the third lap stalled a little bit, UAE (Team L\u2019Imad) was on the podium (with Longo Borghini) so there was no need to make it hard to drop somebody because Marlen \u2014 who deserved a spot on the podium \u2014 was not there anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a side-by-side attack and defence between the remaining top two contenders, Vollering pounced and Niewiadoma was relegated to the chase group \u2014 one of the most compelling Tours de France Femmes was over.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2289116646-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n (Nicolas Tucat \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Vollering said during the week she wanted to write a \u201cbeautiful story\u201d. Bringing a yellow jersey to a French team, it doesn\u2019t get much better than that.<\/p>\n
Final general classification<\/p>\n
Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez)
\nKatarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon\/SRAM) + 1 minute 18 seconds
\nElisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L\u2019Imad) +4:19
\nAntonia Niedermaier (Canyon\/SRAM) +5:10
\nPaula Blasi (USA Team L\u2019Imad) +6:13<\/p>\n
Stage 9 Top 5:<\/p>\n
Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez), two hours, 44 minutes and 43 seconds
\nPaula Blasi (UAE Team L\u2019Imad) + 1:04
\nKasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon\/SRAM), same time
\nNiamh Fisher-Black (Lidl-Trek), same time
\nAntonia Niedermaier (Canyon\/SRAM) +1:06<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Demi Vollering lifts her bike above her head in delight. She has just crossed the line to win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1428,5,3357,354],"class_list":["post-63341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-cycling","tag-france","tag-global-sports","tag-olympics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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