{"id":291878,"date":"2025-07-26T00:04:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T00:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/291878\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T00:04:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T00:04:16","slug":"vollering-out-to-avenge-2024-heartbreak-in-tour-de-france-femmes-battle-with-niewiadoma-tour-de-france-femmes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/291878\/","title":{"rendered":"Vollering out to avenge 2024 heartbreak in Tour de France Femmes battle with Niewiadoma | Tour de France Femmes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fourth edition of the Tour de France Femmes begins in Brittany on Saturday with the defending champion, Kasia Niewiadoma, facing a range of new challengers as Demi Vollering seeks to avenge last year\u2019s cruel four-second defeat on Alpe d\u2019Huez<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While the Polish star has stated her wish to win back-to-back Tours, Vollering, who moved to the French team FDJ Suez at the end of last season, is determined to again conquer the race she won in 2023. Their duel on the slopes of Alpe d\u2019Huez at the climax of last year\u2019s race was one of the most gripping in the history of any Tour de France<\/a> and led to the narrowest margin of overall victory ever, in either the men\u2019s or women\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

Vollering, now 28, the winner of this year\u2019s women\u2019s Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, Strade Bianche and three other stage races, arrives in Brittany as the outstanding favourite. Niewiadoma has made a slow start this year but comes to the race in ascending form for Canyon-Sram, having won the Polish national road race title in June and finishing third in the Tour of Switzerland.<\/p>\n

But the pair have other rivals, with Marlen Reusser, winner of the Tour of Switzerland and second in the Giro d\u2019Italia, and Elisa Longo Borghini, winner of the women\u2019s Giro, leading the way. Others capable of mounting a serious challenge include the Australian climber Sarah Gigante, France\u2019s Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot, winner of the women\u2019s Paris-Roubaix, and Anna van der Breggen of the Netherlands, third in the women\u2019s Vuelta and Vollering\u2019s former sports director.<\/p>\n

Demi Vollering in yellow during last year\u2019s race. Photograph: Hollandse Hoogte\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The peloton will race more than 1,165km across the country from Brittany to the mountains, the stages increasing in difficulty before a final weekend of climbing in the Alps. As for the race itself, which will stage its 2027 Grand D\u00e9part in the UK, its director, Marion Rousse, has been overwhelmed by the huge growth of its popularity. \u201cThe women\u2019s Tour de France is growing fast, almost too fast,\u201d she said. \u201cI think back to the first edition, I had a lot of questions and doubts. I wondered if it would work, if people would watch and be interested.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2026 the race will move dates to a standalone start that no longer piggybacks the interest in the final weekend of the men\u2019s race. \u201cOur Tour is getting too big to be run at the same time as the men\u2019s race,\u201d Rousse said. \u201cWe need to change the model and create our own timescale.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sporting demands of the race are also increasing, something that Rousse again sees as a natural evolution. This year, the mammoth climbs of Col de la Madeleine and the brutal Joux Plane feature on the final weekend.<\/p>\n

After last year\u2019s cliffhanger, Rousse is hoping for another gripping ending to the nine-stage race. \u201cIf it\u2019s too hard, sometimes that causes too many differences in level, or too much time to be lost. That can kill the suspense,\u201d she said. \u201cJust making it super hard doesn\u2019t make it the best race to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fourth edition of the Tour de France Femmes begins in Brittany on Saturday with the defending champion,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-291878","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114916613380284582","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}