Bike racing is well known for inspiring fans to get on their bikes, and never was that more apparent than during the recent Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, according to the latest numbers released by Strava.

Women's cycling enjoyed a significant boost, not just in France but across the world, as riders saddled up and sought to emulate their heroes.

In the race's host nation alone, women logged 15% more rides on the training platform during the week of the race versus the week before, with 28% more distance. But the global stats were the most eye-opening. Across the world, the number of women logging their longest ever ride jumped by 30%, while a full 60% more women logged their first 100km-plus activity. On top of that, 41% logged their first-ever ride 50km or more. Three-quarters of all these rides were solo, too. "Women chasing distance on their own terms," as Strava put it in its press release.

Female cyclists also seemed to be inspired by the race's ascent of Mont Ventoux on stage seven, with a huge increase in attempts to conquer the Giant of Provence by women compared to the previous week – 849% to be exact – helped by the second edition of L'Étape du Tour de France Femmes heading up it, no doubt.

Strava also released statistics from the pro peloton itself, including 994 QoM titles, 84 of which were claimed by eventual winner Demi Vollering alone. The pros also completed a total 133 Everests across the course of the nine stages, or 1.18 million metres of climbing. Average speed across all the stages was 30.2kph (18.76mph) and, Strava revealed, the collective calorie burn of 1.4 million was enough to cover around 12,400 cappuccinos. We'll drink to that.

These are just the latest impressive statistics from a race that has trod new ground across the board, with a record TV audience share in France of 32.9%, and the longest ever parcours at 1,175km (730 miles).

Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) won by 1:18 after seizing the yellow jersey on stage eight to Nice after a thrilling battle between herself, Marlen Reusser (Movistar) and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM), and defending it the following day.

British rider Robyn Clay pushed her persistence to new limits last week, when she battled through illness in the searing heat to make it to the finish of her first Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

The 22-year-old, a first-year pro with Picnic PostNL, described her debut in the nine-day race as “really, really hard”.

“I just got emotional at the finish because I think I’m just relieved that it’s finished, but also it’s such a crazy experience,” she told Cycling Weekly after the closing stage in Nice on Sunday. “It all just kind of hit me at the end.”

Clay placed 114th overall on her debut, second-last ahead of her team-mate Mia Griffin, and almost three hours behind the winner Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez).

At one point, though, she doubted whether she would finish the race at all, after she fell victim to the 35°C heatwave that stifled the opening weekend in Switzerland.

“The first couple of days I was throwing up every 20 minutes and getting dropped,” Clay said. “I was the only person getting dropped straight away, so that was really a tough pill to swallow.

“My boyfriend was wanting to book to come to Nice [for the final two stages], but I told him, ‘Don’t bother, just in case I don’t make it there.’

“But as it went on, I adapted a bit better to the heat, so it was OK.”

Thirty-two riders did not finish this year’s Tour de France Femmes, mostly due to illness or missing the time cut.

Reflecting on her debut as a whole, Clay said she was taken aback by the scale of the race, which only its fifth year is already the calendar's marquee event. “Everything’s just bigger,” the Briton said. “There’s more people, more media, more staff, more everything. It’s just like a normal race, but on a massive scale.”

Clay was named Cycling Weekly’s domestic rider of the year for 2025, having won both the National Road and National Circuit Series titles with British Continental team DAS-Hutchinson.

Since joining Picnic PostNL in January, she has started some of the biggest races in the world, including the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, the Giro d’Italia Women, and now, the Tour de France Femmes.

Asked for her favourite thing about her Tour debut, Clay said it was “just being here and seeing all the crowds”. Conversely, she “hated” scaling Mont Ventoux, the barren, 1,910m-tall mountain that made up the finish of stage seven.

“It was well windy, but I heard that Ventoux means windy mountain, so it makes sense,” she said. “I’d like to come again.”

Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney has put to bed the mystery surrounding the Mont Ventoux Strava QOM, updating her Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift stage upload to prove she shattered the record.

The Canyon-SRAM rider soloed to victory on stage seven atop the mountain, but did not initially log a time on the official leaderboard due to her Strava privacy settings.

The QOM – the fastest time recorded by a woman – for the verified 'Mont Ventoux (par Bédoin)' segment at first went to Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L’IMAD), who finished third on the stage.

Following the race’s finale on Sunday, however, Niewiadoma-Phinney updated her Strava file, turning off her privacy restrictions, to show that she rode the climb more than a minute and a half faster than the Italian.

The Polish rider's record-breaking time for the 20.74km segment was one hour, six minutes and two seconds. Her average speed was 18.8kph – 0.4kph faster than Longo Borghini – on an average gradient of 8.3%.

In a press conference ahead of the Tour de France Femmes, Niewiadoma-Phinney declared herself “ready to break” the Strava QOM on Mont Ventoux, a climb she described as a “very iconic”.

When informed by Cycling Weekly after the race that Longo Borghini had initially taken the crown, Niewiadoma-Phinney said: “I was like nearly two minutes faster. [The QOM] is there, but it's not loading for some reason. I don’t know why.”

The answer, it turned out, lay in the fact the 31-year-old's privacy settings hide the ends of her rides on Strava. As such, her stage seven upload appeared to finish a few hundred metres short of the summit of Mont Ventoux, meaning she did not publicly record a time for the segment.

This has now been updated, as has the leaderboard.

More than 19,000 women have ridden the Strava segment for Mont Ventoux.

Seven of the top-10 best times were recorded last Friday during the Tour de France Femmes stage; alongside Niewiadoma-Phinney and Longo Borghini, the leaderboard counts Paula Blasi (UAE Team L’IMAD), Kim Le Court-Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal), Marion Bunel (Visma-Lease a Bike), Thalita de Jong (Human Powered Health) and Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal).

Also in the top-10 are former British hill-climb champion Illi Gardner and amateur Victoria Stansfield, who won L’Étape du Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, a sportive event held across one stage of the race.

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) holds the men's record – the KOM – with a time of 53 minutes and 47 seconds.

This year’s Tour de France Femmes was won by Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez), who became the first woman in history to earn two titles in the race. Niewiadoma-Phinney finished second overall, followed by Longo Borghini in Nice.

“We came here to fight for the best possible result and, I mean, I won on Mont Ventoux, and I feel like that was the biggest day of my life, cycling-wise,” Niewiadoma-Phinney said in her post-race press conference. “I’m super proud and happy about it.”

The 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift broke TV records in its host country, fuelling calls for the whole race to be broadcast in full.

The fifth edition of the race boasted a 32.9% audience share on average in France, meaning almost a third of TV viewers were tuned into the race, which was won by Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez).

The data, released by host broadcaster France Télévisions on Monday, showed that the Tour had captured more of the TV audience, with the 2025 race averaging a 31.6% share. As many as 23.2 million French people watched at least a minute of the race.

The daily average of viewers for the Tour de France Femmes was down slightly, with 2.6 million viewers a day rather than 2.7 million, but that can be partly attributed to a lack of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot in the yellow jersey. The French Visma-Lease a Bike rider did not start stage eight after a disappointing defence of her title.

All these records were despite only three of the nine stages being given full broadcasts – stages one, five and nine – with hours missing from the the starts of the remaining six stages.

Data for the rest of the world is yet to be released, but it is proof that the Tour has already become a big part of the French sporting calendar; the men's Tour de France averaged 35.1% of audience share over its 21 stages, with every stage broadcast in full.

The peak viewership came on Friday 7 August's stage seven, when Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney stormed to a historic victory atop Mont Ventoux. An average audience share of 41.5% tuned in, with the viewers topping at 5.1 million; this stage was not broadcast in full, and was on a Friday.

Sunday's final stage saw a peak of 3.5 million people in France, with a 35.8% audience share watching Vollering complete her challenge in Nice.

Last week, race director Marion Rousse told Cycling Weekly that she and the race organiser, ASO, were giving “serious consideration” to broadcasting the race in full.

“What’s certain is that I’ve discussed this at length with France Télévisions [who produce the broadcast for the race, commissioned by ASO], and we’re giving serious consideration to broadcasting all the stages in full in the future because the women deserve it, and because it works well in terms of audience figures,” Rousse said.

“We’re currently giving it real consideration, which is a step forward. Things are moving in the right direction.”

Demi Vollering's FDJ United-Suez team took home €77,080 (£65,949/$89,035) in prize money from the 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, leaving the race top of the prize list.

A total of €260,750 (£223,113/$301,192) was on offer for the 21 teams at the race, awarded based on performance. Teams that did well on the general classification or won stages populate the top of the table, but six teams won less than €1,000, with Mayenne Monbana My Pie bottom, without anything.

A large part of FDJ's winnings come from Vollering's yellow jersey triumph. She earned €50,000; combined with the money won for three stage victories, this is why FDJ sit top of the table.

However, FDJ's haul is less than a 10th of what the most successful team at the men's Tour de France, UAE Team Emirates-XRG, received. Last month, the team of Tadej Pogačar won €832,750, including €500,000 alone for Pogačar winning overall.

While the women's race is nine stages, rather than the 21 for the men, the prize money works out at €28,972 per stage for the Tour de France Femmes, as opposed to €109,523 per stage for the men's Tour de France. Analysed per kilometre raced, there was €708 of prize money per km at the men's race, compared to €222 per km at the Femmes.

The Tour de France Femmes' race director Marion Rousse has previously defended the prize money disparity, pointing out that women's cycling has come a long way. "The most important thing is being able to live off your passion rather than just focusing on prize money that does not provide for a sustainable income," she is reported to have said last year.

"When you compare the prize funds, the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift actually boasts a larger prize pool than the Critérium du Dauphiné for an equivalent number of race days."

All prize money is traditionally shared around a team, rather than going to the individual winners, and all riders at the Tour de France Femmes are subject to minimum salaries, with many earning much more; Vollering's deal with FDJ-Suez deal was understood to be worth around €900,000.

For Women's WorldTour riders, the minimum €38,000 per year for employed riders past their first year and €31,768 for employed neo-pros, while for self-employed riders, the minimums are €62,320 and €52,000 respectively.

For ProTeams, the minimum is €18,392 for an employed neo-pro, €20,000 for someone past their first year, and €30,162 for a self-employed neo-pro, and €36,080 for a self-employed rider past their first year.

How is the prize money allocated?

Prize money at the Tour de France Femmes is weighted heavily on each rider’s placing in the overall standings. The yellow jersey winner received €50,000 – almost a quarter of the entire prize pot – while second place earned €25,000, third earned €10,000, and the winnings diminish down to €1,000 for 16th-20th place.

There are also sums on offer for the winners of each of the other three jerseys – green, polka dot and white. Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) took home the green jersey as the winner of the points classification, and netted €3,000. The same sum went to Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Premier Tech) as the Queen of the Mountains. Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM) also got €3,000 for best young rider. In the mountains and points classifications, there was money awarded down to fifth, while in the young rider's competition, that went down to €500 for fourth – lucky Nienke Vinke (SD Worx-Protime). Each day a rider spends in a distinctive jersey netted them €800.

Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM) won the overall combativity award as well as finishing second, taking home €2,000 for the former. Meanwhile, Juliette Berthet (FDJ United-Suez) won "best teammte" according to the jury, which got her and her team €1,500.

The team classification, awarded to the team with the best cumulative time of its top three-riders in the GC, means prize money too. UAE Team L'IMAD, with three riders in the top seven overall, won this, meaning they got a bonus €6,000, while Lidl-Trek in second got €4,000, and FDJ United-Suez in third won €2,500. For being the first team on each stage, there was €200 a day,

Prize money is also awarded after every stage based on each rider’s placing: €4,000 for the stage winner, €2,000 for second place, €1,000 for third, all the way down to €200 for 20th.

Riders also had the chance to win between €30 and €160 for being first over classified climbs, and €120 for being first at each intermediate sprint, €70 for second, and €30 for third,

The tension that followed a heated Stage 8 finale between Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM) and Demi Vollering’s FDJ United-SUEZ team appears to have been settled, despite animated words between the two Tour de France Femmes rivals in the opening kilometres of Stage 9.

TV cameras caught Vollering and Niewiadoma-Phinney riding alongside one another early in Sunday’s final stage having a conversation. Vollering later confirmed that she had approached her rival to clear the air over the previous day’s controversial finale.

"It was good that we had a talk together," Vollering, draped in yellow, said after the stage. "It was all good in the end."

Niewiadoma-Phinney similarly suggested the matter had been resolved between the riders.

"Sometimes it’s nice for us riders to talk through things and maybe leave the media out of it," she said. "At the end of the day, there’s so much going on when you’re full gas.

"We’ve been competing together for years, and we will be competing for the next year or so. None of us ever wants to have any sort of beef."

The discussion followed a bitter end to Stage 8, when Niewiadoma-Phinney was furious with FDJ rider Célia Gery after feeling she had been blocked and pushed into the barriers by the French champion during the finale.

Niewiadoma-Phinney publicly confronted Gery after the finish and subsequently criticised the French rider and FDJ’s actions, saying she had lost all respect for the team over the incident.

Vollering said Sunday that FDJ had never intended to block Niewiadoma-Phinney and that Gery’s line had instead been dictated by the road.

"I went to Kasia this morning to say that we never had the intentions to block her," Vollering explained. "It was also a tricky corner. There was a pothole in the middle, so it was only one way to take this line, and Célia had no other choice.

"Célia also, in this moment, didn’t realise she did anything wrong."

The controversy spiralled overnight on social media, and FDJ-Suez's Director Sportif Lars Boom said that Gery even received death threats.

"[Gery] got a lot of nasty messages, which makes me always very angry, especially because she’s such a young girl still, and we should always protect young people from these kinds of stupid actions from people who don’t think and just send a message," Vollering revealed.

"It’s very sad to think that you go to somebody’s profile and send them threatening messages. I can really not understand this, but it makes me very angry. And she had a really rough time."

The FDJ leader said she had been disappointed by how publicly the criticism had been directed at an individual rider while emotions were still running high.

"I wanted to have a chat with Kasia about this also because I was just a bit disappointed that she let all the emotions out like that about a rider and saying their name," Vollering said.

"You should always try to avoid these kinds of things. First of all, we are riders, and then next to it, we are human beings, we are real persons. If you say somebody’s name or you really attack somebody like this, it really hurts somebody and can really do bad things to people."

There was little time for either rider to dwell on the dispute as the stakes were as high as they can get. Vollering started the 99.2km final stage with a mere eight seconds over Niewiadoma-Phinney on general classification, leaving the yellow jersey still very much in play on a course featuring four ascents of the Col d’Èze.

Asked how she had managed to shut out the controversy with the Tour still on the line, Vollering offered a simple solution.

"Don’t go on social media. That helps a lot," she said.

On the final ascent of the Col d’Èze, Vollering made the decisive move around 800 metres from the summit, with an acceleration to which Niewiadoma-Phinney had no response. Vollering crested the top with an 18-second advantage and continued to extend it to well over a minute on the descent into Nice to claim her second Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift victory.

By the time the celebrations began, any lingering animosity appeared to have disappeared, with the two rivals embracing and chatting amicably.

 "[Demi] makes me work harder and then dream to come back here and get the yellow jersey again," Niewiadoma-Phinney said.

Vollering and Niewiadoma-Phinney have now both finished on the final podium in all five editions of the Tour de France Femmes since its 2022 revival. They've also both won the Tour, so while the tension from Stage 8 appears to have been put to rest, the rivalry between the pair is certainly going nowhere.

Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney put in an all-time best climbing performance when she won on Mont Ventoux at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. She dropped the entire peloton, claimed the stage by more than a minute, and rode herself into the yellow jersey.

Fans were confused, then, when she uploaded her ride to Strava, and didn’t have the fastest recorded women's time – the QOM. That honour instead went to Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L’IMAD), who finished third on the day, with a time of 1:07:44 on the official 20.74km ‘Mont Ventoux (par Bédoin)’ segment.

When Cycling Weekly questioned the Italian about the QOM on Saturday, she said she only had it “probably because Kasia didn’t publish yet”. But Niewiadoma-Phinney had published by that point. Why did she not take the crown?

“I think I did,” the Canyon-Sram rider told Cycling Weekly quizzically on Sunday, during her press conference for finishing runner-up overall. “I think so, because I was looking at it also. That’s the one – because there are a few different segments – the one that Longo has right now?

“I was like nearly two minutes faster,” she continued. “[The QOM] is there, but it’s not loading for some reason. I don’t know why.”

The answer, it turned out, lay in Niewiadoma-Phinney’s Strava privacy settings; due to hiding the ends of her rides, her file appeared to finish a few hundred metres short of Ventoux’s summit. This meant her QOM time on the segment was not recorded on the public leaderboards.

Asked if she will now amend the file to secure the QOM, Niewiadoma-Phinney smiled: “Oh yeah.”

A surreal scene then unfolded in the media centre when Longo Borghini, who was waiting for her press conference for finishing third, raised her hand to ask a question.

“Hi Kasia, it’s Elisa Longo Borghini from UAE Team L’IMAD,” she began. “I want to ask you a question: can you not upload your Strava segment? I have the QOM and I’d like to keep it.”

Laughing, Niewiadoma-Phinney said: “It depends how many drinks you buy me for that.” Longo Borghini replied: “It depends how cheap drunk you are… We can make a deal later.”

Seven of the top 10 women's Strava times on Mont Ventoux were set on Friday during stage seven of the Tour de France Femmes.

As it stands, and before Niewiadoma-Phinney has updated her file, Paula Blasi (UAE Team L'IMAD) is second, Kim Le Court Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal) fourth, with Marion Bunel (Visma-Lease a Bike), Thalita de Jong (Human Powered Health), Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal) and Maeva Squiban (UAE Team L'IMAD) also featuring on the leaderboard.

Reflecting on her entire Tour performance, Niewiadoma-Phinney said she was “happy and satisfied” with her second place, because she was confident she had given her “absolute best”.

“We came here to fight for the best possible result and, I mean, I won on Mont Ventoux, and I feel like that was the biggest day of my life, cycling-wise,” she said. “I’m super proud and happy about it.”

After nine epic stages of racing, Demi Vollering has won the Tour de France Femmes for the second time in her career, making history as the first rider to win two editions of the race.

The FDJ United-SUEZ rider sealed the overall victory by winning the final stage around Nice, as she dropped her main general classification rival Kasia Niewiadoma on the last ascent of the Col d’Èze with 16km to go, before going solo to the finish on the Promenade des Anglais.

“I’ve never won in the yellow jersey before,” Vollering said in her post-race interview. “It’s incredible the people I have around me. It’s not only the dream to win in yellow here and win a second Tour de France, but it’s the dream to live this life and work hard together with people with a lot of passion, I think that’s the whole dream.”

After her triumph atop Mont Ventoux two days prior, Niewiadoma tried everything to snatch back the yellow jersey on the final stage after her Canyon-SRAM team had attempted to put the Vollering under pressure throughout the day. However, the Polish rider was simply unable to match the strength of her rival on the final climb and was ultimately forced to settle for second place in the general classification.

After some controversy on stage 8 surrounding a blocking move by Vollering’s teammate Célia Gery on Niewiadoma before the final climb and subsequent comments about the incident, the Dutchwoman was keen to make a demonstration on the final stage and show that she was the strongest rider in the race.

“I had to try to attack and go alone,” she stated. “I wanted to make it clear that we didn’t win because of an incident yesterday. That’s not what I believe and I wanted to make it clear that we as a team deserve to win a beautiful Tour de France Femmes with humility and pride.”

In the battle for the final spot on the podium, a nasty crash for Marlen Reusser with 60km to go saw the Movistar rider fall off the podium and out of the top ten entirely, as she finished more than twenty-four minutes behind Vollering on the stage, which handed third place to Elisa Longo Borghini.

Meanwhile, Niewiadoma’s teammate Antonia Niedermaier finished fourth overall and won the white jersey as the best young rider, whilst Lorena Wiebes won the intermediate sprint on the final stage to secure the green jersey and Puck Pieterse finished the race safely to win the polka dot jersey.

How It Happened

At 99.2km in length, the final stage of this year’s Tour de France Femmes was the shortest road stage of the race. Centred around Nice, the riders took on four ascents of the Col d’Èze before a descent to the finish along the Promenade des Anglais.

They were climbing right from the start, as the first ascent of the Col d’Èze (7.7km at 5.9%) began straight out of the neutral zone. UAE Team L’IMAD were interested in getting a rider up the road early in the stage, with attacks from Dominika Włodarczyk and Maëva Squiban on the opening climb.

However, the pace being set by the teams at the head of the peloton meant that each move was brought back quickly, whilst several riders were being dropped out the back, as fatigue from the previous eight stages was beginning to set in.

On the descent, a misjudged corner for Zoe Bäckstedt (Canyon-SRAM) saw her hit the deck, but the British national champion was back on her bike quickly and able to chase back on to the leading group. Franziska Koch (FDJ United-SUEZ) was the only other rider affected by the crash, but she just about managed to keep herself upright.

As they came off the descent and re-entered Nice, Malwina Mul (Cofidis) and Paula Ostiz (Movistar) formed a two-rider breakaway at the head of the race, with the former taking maximum points at the intermediate sprint, whilst Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) took third place to mathematically secure the green jersey.

It wasn’t long after that the leading duo were caught as they went onto the second ascent of the Col d’Èze, as Zoe Bäckstedt had recovered from her earlier crash and went to the front to set the pace for her team leader Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM).

An incredible ride from the British national champion saw her whittle down the leading group, dropping riders such as Kim Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal), Évita Muzic (FDJ United-SUEZ), Magdeleine Vallieres (EF Education-Oatly) and Célia Gery (FDJ United-SUEZ), before Marlen Reusser (Movistar) was then distanced with 1.7km to go on the climb and her position on the podium was put into jeopardy.

A gap of nearly a minute had opened up to the Swiss rider as they went onto the descent, before disaster then struck, as Reusser crashed hard through a right-hand corner. Fortunately, she was able to get back on her bike and finish the race, though she would ultimately lose nearly twenty-five minutes and fall out of the top ten entirely.

The first moves from the lead group came on the third ascent of the Col d’Èze, with Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) putting in a small acceleration, before Isabella Holmgren (Lidl-Trek) went on the attack with 46km to go.

After nearly being taken out by a spectator dressed as a panda as she launched her move, the Canadian rider quickly settled into her rhythm and began to establish an advantage over the group behind, which was being led by Juliette Berthet (FDJ United-SUEZ) in service of her team leader Demi Vollering (FDJ United-SUEZ), as the French rider was the only remaining teammate for the yellow jersey.

As she went over the top of the climb, Holmgren had more than a minute of an advantage over the yellow jersey group, but then gradually lost time on the descent as Berthet continued to lead the chase behind, and as she went onto the final climb her lead had been cut to half a minute.

The final ascent of the Col d’Èze (6km at 7.6%) was different to the previous three ascents, as it took the riders a shorter but steeper route up the climb, with the Col des Quatre Chemins forming the first part, with gradients of over twelve percent, before a right turn to rejoin the road to the summit.

It was clear that the battle for the stage win and the overall victory would be decided here, and Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM) immediately went to the front to set up a move for Niewiadoma.

Meanwhile, the gap to Holmgren had continued to shrink and she was ultimately caught with 4km to go on the climb. It was at this moment that Niewiadoma decided to launch her move to drop Vollering with a punchy attack.

However, the yellow jersey stayed glued to her wheel, matching each acceleration with relative ease as she remained seated in her saddle, before launching an attack of her own with 3km left on the climb.

With both riders trading blows but neither able to drop the other, they continued to stamp their way up the climb, but as they made the right turn back on to the circuit from the previous laps, it looked as though the two could not be separated.

However, with only a few hundred metres left to go on the climb, Vollering made one final move with an initial acceleration out of the saddle before settling into a high-cadence seated effort that finally cracked Niewiadoma.

As the Polish rider sat back in her saddle a small gap began to open up, and with a quick look around, Vollering pounced on the opportunity with another attack out of the saddle. As the gradient began to flatten out, the Dutch rider now had the upper hand and began to time trial her way along the plateau before the beginning of the descent.

Meanwhile, it was clear that Niewiadoma was suffering and her yellow jersey ambitions were quickly fading away, with the once small gap quickly becoming a chasm, as she did not have the power to match Vollering.

She was then joined on the descent by the chasing group containing Niedermaier and Holmgren, as well as Paula Blasi (UAE Team L’IMAD), Niamh Fisher-Black (Lidl-Trek) and Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L’IMAD), the last of whom was now on to finish third overall after Reusser’s misfortune earlier in the stage.

It was now evident that Vollering would not be caught, as she once again proved to be a level above her competitors. As she came off the final descent into Nice and rolled onto the Promenade des Anglais, she celebrated not only her stage win and a second overall victory at the Tour de France Femmes, lifting her bike aloft and letting out a triumphant scream after she crossed the finish line.

Behind, Blasi outsprinted Niewiadoma to finish runner-up on the stage, but it was the Polish rider that had to settle for second place in the general classification, whilst a late puncture for Longo Borghini gave her the same time as the rest of the group and meant that she moved up onto the podium in third place.

Results

Tour de France Femmes 2026 Stage Nine: Nice > Nice (99km)

1. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ United-Suez, in 02:44:43
2. Paula Blasi (Esp) UAE Team L'IMAD, +1:04
3. Kasia Niewiadoma (Pol) Canyon-SRAM
4. Niamh Fisher-Black (NZl) Lidl-Trek, all at same time
5. Antonia Niedermaier (Ger) Canyon-SRAM, +1:06
6. Isabella Holmgren (Can) Lidl-Trek, +1:08
7. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) UAE Team L'IMAD, +1:04*
8. Femke de Vries (Ned) Visma-Lease a Bike, +1:57
9. Dominika Włodarczyk (Pol) UAE Team L'IMAD
10. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly, all at same time

*Given same time due to a puncture in the final 3km

General Classification after Stage Nine

1. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ United-Suez, in 30:54:51
2. Kasia Niewiadoma (Pol) Canyon-SRAM, +1:18
3. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) UAE Team L'IMAD, +4:19
4. Antonia Niedermaier (Ger) Canyon-SRAM, +5:10
5. Paula Blasi (Esp) UAE Team L'IMAD, +6:13
6. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly, +6:41
7. Dominika Włodarczyk (Pol) UAE Team L'IMAD, +7:53
8. Isabella Holmgren (Can) Lidl-Trek, +9:12
9. Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mau) AG Insurance-Soudal, +14:04
10. Niamh Fisher-Black (NZl) Lidl-Trek, +15:14

After her triumph in the time trial on stage 4 and a stint in the yellow jersey, Marlen Reusser (Movistar) slipped from third to 14th in the general classification at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, after a crash on the descent of the Col d’Èze with around 60km to go on the final stage.

The Swiss rider had a firm grip on the podium going into the stage, with an advantage of nearly two minutes over Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L'IMAD) in fourth.

However, after being dropped by the favourites and crashing, she rode near the back of the race, flanked by five of her Movistar team-mates.

She ultimately crossed the line 109th, 24 minutes and 35 seconds after the stage and race winner Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez).

"I think crash-wise, she's OK. It wasn't a high-speed crash or anything," her Movistar sports director, Kelvin Dekker, said at the finish.

"She took the corner a bit weird, and then I think she crashed over a little bump in the middle of the road. She was mainly really disappointed because she saw the podium getting away, of course, in that moment.

"On the ground, she was fully realising that it would be gone. This was mainly the reason she was longer on the ground, just being really sad and disappointed. I think that's the feeling that will stay a bit longer than the wounds from the crash."

Beyond the finish line on the Promenade des Anglais, Reusser ground to a halt in front of her Movistar soigneurs and began to cry. Her team-mates each took it in turns to console her.

"We start as a team and we finish as a team, and in the end, we had everyone there to support her mentally and get her over the line," Dekker said.

The final stage of the Tour de France Femmes featured a circuit around Nice with four ascents of the Col d’Èze. Reusser looked to be in a strong position with multiple of her Movistar teammates around her, but as they approached the summit of the second ascent she suddenly found herself isolated in the group of favourites.

An infernal pace set by Zoe Bäckstedt in service of her Canyon-SRAM leader Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney whittled down the group to a select number of riders, and it was not long before Reusser also found herself distanced off the back of the group with 67km to go.

As they went over the top of the climb and onto the descent, the gap grew and Reusser had to put in a massive effort to get back to the group. Clearly pushing hard to catch back on, she fell through a right-hand corner and found herself on ground, with her podium hopes extinguished.

In Reusser's place, Longo Borghini completed the podium behind Vollering and Niewiadoma-Phinney,

Demi Vollering said Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney “is not the one who can really say something about [fair play]”, after the Canyon-Sram rider accused Vollering's team-mate of blocking her on stage eight of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

Niewiadoma-Phinney confronted FDJ United-Suez's Célia Gery beyond the finish line of Saturday's stage, accusing her of forcing her into the barriers when Vollering launched her race-winning attack. “If [FDJ] want to compete, they should compete [with] fair play,” Niewiadoma-Phinney later said. “Honestly, I lost all respect for them for that.”

Ahead of the final stage in Nice, Vollering hit back at Niewiadoma-Phinney during an interview in the mixed zone.

“She really attacked my team-mate, and I think it’s not so fair to do that so high in emotions,” the yellow jersey wearer told TNT Sports.

“I didn’t forget about what she did when I was on the ground two years ago, so if she’s speaking about fair play, then I think she is not the one that can really say something about that.”

The incident Vollering referred to came on stage five of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes, when the Dutchwoman crashed with 6.5km to go, and lost her yellow jersey to Niewiadoma-Phinney, who sprinted to second place on the stage.

The Polish rider said at the time that crashes are “an unfortunate part of racing”. She went on to win that edition of the Tour by four seconds.

Vollering also came out to the defence of her team-mate Gery on Sunday after the 20-year-old received abuse on social media following the blocking accusations.

The incident sparked a debate among cycling fans as to whether Gery had committed any wrongdoing. Some social media users insulted the French champion and called for her to be disqualified from the race.

“I find it really sad that we attack each other like this after the finish line,” Vollering said of Niewiadoma-Phinney's comments.

“Célia never did something on purpose. It was also a very tricky corner – there was a pothole in the middle – so there was only one line to take, and Kasia chose to go into the corner next to Célia.

“I feel really sad about what is happening at the moment and how much shit Célia gets over her. She’s still so young. We really should protect her. It’s a very nasty world out there on social media, and it really worries me sometimes how it’s developing. You know, you can really tear a person down like that, and it should never be like this.”

Vollering led Niewiadoma-Phinney by eight seconds going into Sunday's final stage.

Also speaking ahead of the stage, Niewiadoma-Phinney defended her comments from Saturday: “I expressed my opinion. I know what's right, let's say, and what's not maybe necessarily right. It's not that I make things up, and I think I expressed what I had, and nothing has changed since that.”

Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-Sram) accused FDJ United-Suez of blocking her against the barriers in the finale of stage eight of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift as she tried to follow Demi Vollering’s stage-winning attack.

The Polish rider, who took the yellow jersey on Mont Ventoux on Friday, lost her race lead in Nice after she was unable to close the gap to Vollering.

Beyond the seafront finish line, Niewiadoma-Phinney confronted FDJ United-Suez’s French champion Célia Gery, and was captured by Wielerflits saying: “Why did you do that? Why did you close me to the barriers? Was it part of the plan?”

The incident is understood to have happened with around 6.5km to go in the stage, when Vollering launched her first of three accelerations.

Helicopter footage showed Gery pacing on the front of the group, before the camera angle switched, and after a slight broadcasting delay, Vollering appeared on the attack. Although the exact moment was not clearly shown on TV, Niewiadoma-Phinney said she was impeded by the French champion.

“I definitely thought that [FDJ United-Suez] would do something,” the Canyon-Sram rider said. “They always have a plan, so I wasn’t surprised. I was super annoyed at the beginning of the climb because Gery, on purpose, just blocked me to the barriers, where I had to stop pedalling.

“I feel like if they want to compete, they should compete [with] fair play, and not look to close me into the barriers, because I feel like it’s so childish. Honestly, I lost all the respect for them for that.”

Niewiadoma-Phinney’s frustration was clear when she returned to her Canyon-Sram team bus and vented to her sports directors. Four members of team staff then huddled around a telephone to rewatch the incident, with a view of sharing footage with ASO, the race organiser.

“If it was unfair, then there’s a VAR [video assistant referee], there’s a jury, and they will act on it,” Canyon sports director Rolf Aldag explained.

There were ultimately no sanctions in the jury’s post-stage report, which made no mention of the incident.

Asked for their response to Niewiadoma-Phinney’s comments, FDJ United-Suez said they believed there was no wrongdoing on their part.

“I spoke with Célia about it. She didn’t block her, she just went back onto Demi’s wheel,” sports director Lars Boom told The Athletic.

Boom explained the plan was for Gery to follow Vollering’s attack in order to help her leader later in the race. “Blocking is not on my mind,” he said. “What’s on my mind is that Demi needed to enter the corner first with Célia on her wheel. We never talked about blocking. Of course, we want to race fair.”

Stephen Delcourt, Vollering's team manager, echoed the same sentiment. “Demi went first into the corner to take more speed, and Célia just went to the right. There is no fault of Célia,” he said.

“I understand when you are Kasia you search for excuses just after the line, because you never expect to lose yellow today,” Delcourt added. “It doesn’t change the vision that I have for Kasia; she’s a really, really great champion.”

Asked for her view of the incident in her stage winner's press conference, Vollering said: “I cannot say anything about this because apparently it happened behind me, and I don’t have eyes on my back, and neither does Célia – she doesn’t have eyes on her back.”

“I’m sure [Gery] didn’t do it on purpose. I think Kasia also knows deep in her heart that that kind of thing just happens sometimes in racing. It’s the shit part of racing and also the tricky part of racing.”

The Tour de France Femmes will come to a close on Sunday with a final stage starting and finishing in Nice. The route counts four ascents of Col d'Èze (7.7km at 5.9%).

Vollering goes into the final day with an eight-second lead over Niewiadoma-Phinney, and 72 seconds over Marlen Reusser (Movistar).

It’s just after midday in the river-banked commune of La Voulte-sur-Rhône, and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney is daring to believe. “I’m not going to lie,” she begins, speaking to a TV crew at the start of stage seven of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, “the dream of mine is to win at the top of the climb. Mont Ventoux is so iconic that it would be a career-defining moment.”

It seems like a bold statement. Niewiadoma-Phinney, remember, has not made a habit of winning races; until Friday, she had never won a stage of a Grand Tour, and had only collected three victories in seven years. A win on Mont Ventoux? She’s more likely to lose time to her GC rivals, some scoff at the thought. But they’re fools for underestimating a former Tour champion.

You see, Niewiadoma-Phinney has done her homework. She’s reconned the climb three times, familiarised herself with all of its 16km of tarmac, and though she doesn’t tell the interviewer, she’s got an audacious plan: attack with 11km to go, and solo away.

If all the right notes are played in time, she’ll soar from third to first overall, and end the day in the yellow jersey.

Fast forward five hours. Niewiadoma-Phinney is lying on a concrete slab under the red-tipped transmitter tower at the summit of Mont Ventoux. She kisses her fingers and crosses her chest. She then sits up, and beams with a big, toothy smile.

A member of the race organisation is waiting beside her to take her to the podium, built on top of the coarse limestone gravel. The Canyon-Sram rider started the day trailing yellow by a minute and 17 seconds. Not only has she won the stage, but she now leads by 15 seconds. Here’s how she did it.

“Kasia is, you know her, a little bit all or nothing,” Rolf Aldag, Canyon-Sram director of sport, tells Cycling Weekly outside his team bus. It’s an attitude that has seen his rider come agonisingly close to victories (like her third place on stage five), but also makes her easy to bring on board with a plan. Canyon-Sram's big Tour de France plot was hatched last November; in a presentation to the team, they declared they were coming to win.

“There was no other logic,” says Aldag. “If you have a former winner, someone who’s always been on the podium, you can’t go there and say, ‘Let’s see what happens. Maybe fifth is a good place.’”

The race started well. Seventh on day one, Niewiadoma-Phinney kept pace with GC favourites Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez), Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Marlen Reusser (Movistar) on days two and three and then, amazingly, put in a career-best time trial performance on day four to stay within contention. Bolstered by the performance, Aldag began to sketch out a blueprint.

“[Newiadoma-Phinney and I] just randomly met at breakfast. Nobody was there. And I was like, ‘Well, what do you think? What is your self-belief? Where can we support? Do you trust yourself?’” he recalls.

On Ventoux, there was one clear option: “If we wanted to go for yellow, we couldn’t wait until they attacked. We needed to get out of the forest alone, with a decent gap… It was exactly as planned.”

At the foot of the climb, Niewiadoma-Phinney looked to her right and spotted her parents, who had come to surprise her. “I could see my dad crying,” she said, “and I thought I just needed to make them proud.”

It was only a few kilometres later that she made her winning move. It came just inside 10km to go, a counter to an acceleration by Vollering, that saw Niewiadoma-Phinney peel to the left, kick ahead, and immediately draw out a 10-second lead.

Vollering and Reusser looked at each other, but neither closed the gap. Within 2km, it grew to almost a minute. “They were playing games,” Aldag smiles. “That was exactly what we were hoping for.”

Niewiadoma-Phinney, too, had it all worked out. "My big idea was to make it to Chalet [Reynard] with 6km to go on my own, because I knew with the wind we had today, if someone was chasing behind they would try to stay on the wheel as much as possible,” she later revealed.

“Once I made it to Chalet, there was a lot of headwind, but I knew in the back they would just play the game.”

At that same point, a motorbike passed her and flashed her the time gap on a chalkboard. It showed she was closing in on taking the yellow jersey. She kicked out of the saddle, dropped back down low, and ploughed on through the lunar expanse.

“From the recon, I knew that the more speed you take into the corners, the more you get out of them, so I just tried to keep the momentum going,” she said.

Her team-mates shouted encouragement into their radios, hoping to do the same. “I really had no doubt that she would win it,” Antonia Niedermaier said post-stage. “I told her, ‘Kasia, you’re the strongest. I believe in you. You’re the queen.’”

Riding shotgun in the follow car, Aldag was also feeling confident. “We’re nearly at 2,000m. I think Kasia is super efficient here, and it’s day seven of the race. This is something you cannot forget,” he says. “Same day, same race, but on stage two would probably be a different outcome. But she’s so fatigue-resistant.”

Polka dot flags lapped against the snow marker posts that lead to the summit. By the finish line, fans teetered on their feet, blown by the gusts that traced down the final straight. Their eyes gazed back across mountain, and suddenly Niewiadoma-Phinney appeared, alone in the distance, charging around the final corner.

Vollering and Reusser chased behind, but the gap was too big. By the time they passed under the gantry, Niewiadoma-Phinney was already strewn out beyond it on the ground.

Niedermaier, sixth across the line, was the first to congratulate her. “You’re the queen,” she told her team leader, this time to her face, as the pair sat cross-legged and hugged.

Niewiadoma-Phinney laughed between gasps for air. “I said winning here would be a career-defining moment,” she recalled. “I feel like I can retire now.”

That retirement, however, will have to wait a few more days at least. Now back in the yellow jersey she took home in 2024, Niewiadoma-Phinney has two stages left to race, and a 15-second lead to defend. “I definitely expect a massive fight for everything,” she says. “Bonus seconds, basically everything. The gap is so small.”

Fortunately, she knows what it takes. Two years ago, when she won the Tour, she did so by just four seconds – the smallest winning margin in the history of both the men's and women's races. This year's finale could be even closer.

“Nice is going to be a big, big battle,” says Aldag, looking ahead to the weekend. “I would have loved to have 40 seconds, not 15, but it is what it is and we deal with it... It's all in to try and win the Tour.”

It was supposed to be the day things came full circle for Demi Vollering. A decade ago, on the slopes of Mont Ventoux, the then teenager scaled her first mountain by bike on a trip away with her speed skating team-mates. It was the moment she realised she had something special. She then transitioned to cycling, powered to the top of the sport, and, on Friday, returned to the limestone giant where it all began, this time within touching distance of the yellow jersey at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

The script was written. The finale scene would be uplifting: Vollering standing at the summit, applauded by the crowds, a tear in her eye. Instead, she couldn’t get away from the climb sooner.

The FDJ United-Suez rider spent the afternoon trying, and failing, to chase down the stage winner Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-Sram) with Marlen Reusser (Movisar). She started the day 12 seconds off Reusser’s yellow jersey, and ended it 15 off Niewiadoma-Phinney’s.

A few hundred metres beyond the finish line, Vollering ground to a halt in a huddle of TV cameras. She downed a bottle of water, calmly put on a jacket, and then pierced through the crowd to descend 6km down to her team bus. She said nothing. The only sound the microphones captured was the roaring of the wind.

“I didn’t see her after the finish. So I don’t know exactly how she feels,” Nicolas Maire, Vollering’s sports director at FDJ, told Cyclingnews half an hour later.

Asked for his thoughts on how the stage panned out, Maire’s verdict was simple. “That was not the plan,” he said. “But at least we pushed her to fight until the line and to still believe that it’s possible on the next day.

“For sure, it is not what we expected. We were looking for a stage win, but I think Kasia was really, really strong, and she showed it. We will see what we can do in the next few days.”

So what went wrong on the Ventoux? Though chased by two of the peloton's finest climbers, Niewiadoma-Phinney managed to build a minute’s gap barely 3km into her 10km solo. Another 4km later, and the Canyon-Sram rider’s advantage had doubled, making her the virtual yellow jersey on the road, an honour she took for real at the summit. Surely a duo as strong as Vollering and Reusser could have caught her?

For Lars Boom, another of FDJ United-Suez’s sports directors, the problem stemmed from the pair “looking at each other too much”.

“You always know that Kasia will be there,” he said. “And you obviously know that you are a minute and five seconds ahead of her in the standings, but you also know that you can't let her ride too far alone. That's not only on us, but that's also on Marlen to control that, I think. But she's playing more with her [yellow] jersey.

“We did take initiative to make the race hard at the start, which suits Demi, but Marlen just let it go. She looked very quickly to Demi, and that is sometimes not so smart.”

Reusser later agreed that she and Vollering had been “stupid” with her tactics.

The Swiss rider, however, also pointed the finger at her old SD Worx team-mate, who she felt could have co-operated better. “Demi kept attacking super hard, and I kept telling her, ‘Don’t do this. Let’s just ride’,” Reusser said. “We had Kasia well in sight. We could for sure close the time.”

Instead, she said, she and Vollering got a “nice portion of lactic acid again and again in the legs”, and Niewiadoma-Phinney rode away.

It was only when Vollering had begun her warm down outside her team bus that she felt ready to speak to the media. Dutch broadcaster NOS was on hand to ask her about her day.

“I launched an attack, and then Kasia very cleverly went straight over the top of it. And then, well, I really should have closed the gap straight away,” Vollering rued.

"Afterwards, you always start to wonder a bit whether you really couldn’t do it, or whether that’s just what you thought at the time. But yes, that’s mainly where the disappointment lies.

“I hoped to be able to break away with Marlen and then catch up with Kasia, but, unfortunately, that didn’t work out.”

Another chance might come in the future for Vollering to close the loop on her Mont Ventoux tale. But on Friday, in pursuit with Reusser against Niewiadoma-Phinney’s dogged ride, she seemed to play her cards wrong.

Rather than winning the stage, her deficit in the GC grew by three seconds. “Until the finish line in Nice, all is possible,” FDJ sports director Maire said.

“I think Kasia took a good advantage today, but we’ll try to fight in the next few days, and see what Demi’s feeling is after this stage to see what we can do.”

With two stages remaining, this Tour de France Femmes is far from over.

Demi Vollering and her FDJ United-SUEZ teammates Juliette Berthet and Célia Gery were each fined CHF100 on Friday for public urination during stage 7 of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, which finished atop Mont Ventoux.

The offence falls under article 2.12.007, section 8.6 of the UCI regulations, which covers "unseemly or inappropriate behaviour", including undressing or urinating in public during a race.

At a Women’s WorldTour race such as the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, the fine runs between CHF100 and CHF200. And while three FDJ riders received the minimum sanction, the fines do highlight some of the practical difficulties around nature breaks.

When and where are riders allowed to pee?

The UCI regulations are clear on what riders can be fined for, but offer little guidance on where and when riders are actually supposed to pee. There is no formal nature-break zone or designated time.

Instead, the peloton has traditionally governed itself through convention. Once a breakaway is established and the race settles down, riders may collectively choose a quieter section of road, away from towns and spectators, to stop. The bunch eases off, a group pulls over and, traditionally at least, nobody attacks.

But that is convention, not regulation, and modern racing does not always provide the lull required for it.

At this edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, much of the racing has been relentlessly aggressive, with attacks and counter-attacks beginning almost immediately. There have been precious few calm moments for the peloton to take a collective nature break.

Friday was, remarkably, one of the first.

"So many people [peed] today, I’m surprised there aren’t more [fines]," one rider told Cycling Weekly. "I feel like it’s the first stage we could even do that. Finally it wasn’t full gas from 0km."

For the women’s peloton, there is also the issue of mechanics to contend with.

Male riders can generally make a roadside stop relatively quickly without having to undress. If the race is moving quickly, some can even urinate while riding, moving to the edge of the road and occasionally relying on a teammate for a push.

For women, the process is more cumbersome. A rider generally needs to stop, dismount and lower her shorts enough to squat. Depending on her clothing, that may also mean undoing or removing part of her jersey. And with one-piece race suits becoming increasingly common, a nature break means undressing almost fully.

Finding a section of the course that is not considered "in public" can be difficult, too, particularly on a race such as the Tour de France Femmes where spectators line the road, television cameras rove through the convoy and, as on Friday's stage, there's a lot of exposed terrain.

Stopping can also have a competitive risk, something Vollering knows all too well.

At the 2023 Vuelta Femenina, Vollering and several SD Worx teammates stopped for a nature break just as Movistar began forcing the pace ahead of a crosswind section. Vollering, who had started the day in the red leader’s jersey, found herself chasing after the race split apart and eventually finished 1:04 behind the leaders. She lost the Vuelta to Annemiek van Vleuten the following day by just nine seconds.

To that end, a CHF100 fine may be a price riders are happy to pay if the yellow jersey is on the line. That, or simply keep quiet and let it flow.

As the remainder of the peloton trickled through the finish line on the summit of Mont Ventoux, Marlen Reusser (Movistar) stood barefoot against the Movistar team car, arms crossed, about 500 metres down the other side of the mountain.

The race lead and the yellow jersey conceded to Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM). She made no attempt to disguise how much that hurt.

“I’m just very disappointed,” Reusser said. “I really hoped that I could win the stage or keep the yellow. That's a hard pill to swallow.

"I think it was not possible. Kasia did really, really good. Congratulations to her, really, chapeau. And, yeah, I’m sad. I’m just sad."

The iconic Ventoux ascent came down to a battle of the three GC favourites. Starting the stage, Reusser was in yellow with a mere 12-second lead over Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) and 1:17 on Niewiadoma-Phinney. Vollering tried to test her rivals early with small accelerations on the bends through the forest, but the others were quick to respond.

Taking advantage of the caginess between Vollering and Reusser, Niewiadoma-Phinney Next attacked with 9.7 kilometres to go.

Neither Reusser nor Vollering responded. They had a little time gap to play with but a sthey looked at one another Niewiadoma-Phinney powered off. Soon the gap was 20 seconds, then 45, then 1:15. She had ridden herself into the virtual yellow jersey and still, the others continued to look at each other.

"Honestly, I didn’t understand fully," Reusser said. "I think the problem was that Demi and me, we were marking each other too much. Really stupid for both of us."

“Demi kept attacking super hard, and I kept telling her, ‘Don’t do this. Let’s just ride.’ Because we had Kasia well in sight. We could for sure close it."

The constant marking and attacking did little more than increase the lactic acid in their legs, Reusser pointed out.

But Reusser had little choice but to follow Vollering’s accelerations. Letting the Dutchwoman ride away could have been just as damaging to her Tour ambitions. But every attack and counterattack also played into the hands of Niewiadoma, already alone up the road and able to ride her own pace.

"It was not too good from us and very good from Kasia," Reusser admitted.

"Neither of us wanted to ride crazy with the other in the wheel, knowing there are following attacks,” Reusser explained.

Movistar had gone into the stage expecting Vollering to be the principal threat. The team’s plan, according to Reusser’s sports director Kelvin Dekker, had been straightforward: keep their leader out of trouble for as long as possible, deliver her into the decisive section and then "follow, follow, follow," with particular attention paid to Vollering.

The difficulty came when Niewiadoma went instead.

"Then a game start[ed] where Demi attacks a few times more, and I think Marlen realised quite quickly that what Kasia was doing was quite strong. But she also couldn’t drop from Demi, so you have to follow those attacks. And that smoked her a bit," Dekker said.

Eventually, the tactical game turned into mere survival. The matches had been burned and all the while Niewiadoma-Phinney was growing her lead.

"All those tactical stories, you can throw them out of the window in the moment that someone else is just quite a bit stronger," Dekker said. "Then it’s just riding full gas to the finish and hoping you’re still close enough."

Dekker admitted Niewiadoma-Phinney winning both the physical and tactical battle had not been the scenario Movistar considered most likely, even if they had discussed the possibility of her attacking.

"I think for sure she’s underestimated," he said. "Kasia is an incredible rider. She’s been on every Tour podium. She’s won one."

But "if you would have asked me about this scenario, I would have said this was the less likely scenario to happen. But it did happen."

Niewiadoma-Phinney reached the summit solo with a comfortable margin. Vollering tried to minimise the damage at the end with one more attack on Reusser and finished in second place, 1:16 after Niewiadoma-Phinney.

When asked what had gone through her mind when Vollering attacked that final time, Reusser had a simple, explicit comment: "F*** it."

Reusser, completely spent, got passed by Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) and had to settle for fourth place on the stage, 1:42 down from Niewiadoma-Phinney.

For Reusser, the only consolation lay in knowing she had given it her all.

"I was really smoked," she said. "I am not so happy, but I gave everything."

But the race is far from over. There are two more stages left in the 2026 Tour de France avec Zwift and the current GC top three is as follows:

1. Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney in yellow
2. Demi Vollering +15 seconds
3. Marlen Reusser +39 seconds

Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney flew to stage seven victory and into the yellow jersey on Mont Ventoux and the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift on Friday, in an historic ride.

The Canyon-SRAM rider, winner of the race in 2024, attacked with 9.7km to go on the famous mountain, and gradually built up a huge lead as race leader Marlen Reusser (Movistar) and Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) looked at each other. The pair were unable, or unwilling, to close the gap, as Niewiadoma-Phinney pressed on.

Stage seven's winner was 1:17 behind Reusser heading into the stage, but ended the day ahead, with Vollering driving off the front in the final 500m to also take time on the yellow jersey. Niewiadoma-Phinney now leads the race, 15 seconds ahead of Vollering, with Reusser in third, a further 24 seconds behind. Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L'IMAD) was third on the stage, ahead of Reusser.

Despite winning the race overall two years ago, this was Niewiadoma-Phinney's first Tour stage win, putting her in pole position with two more stages of the race to come.

Vollering could not leave behind Reusser until the closing stages, as Niewiadoma-Phinney flew away, not just holding onto her lead, but extending it on one of cycling's most famous climbs.

"Honestly, it’s hard to describe my feelings because I’m speechless," Niewiadoma-Phinney said post-stage. "I feel so much gratitude and I don’t know, this victory goes to so many people that were with me along this very long road, without proper big wins. I just want to thank you almost everyone. I don’t know, I’m just so tired and blown away with what happened.

"As we started to climb Mont Ventoux, I looked right and saw my parents, they made a surprise visit and I could see my Dad crying, and I thought I just needed to make them proud. This victory goes to my family, to my friends, to my team, to my husband Taylor, to my coach. Also my team boss Ronnie, because they know how much effort I put into this victory, and they were always by my side and listening to my complaints. I’m just blown away."

"I never really chased that victory for the sake of winning, I chased it for the sake of this beautiful feeling," she continued. "I came to Ventoux with my friends, with my husband, and we rode the climb three times. We had fun, and it was just about this amazing feeling of being around here, at the top of the mountain. From that moment, I just wanted to have that feeling of coming here, the pure joy of riding, feeling like a kid. We can go anywhere we want and love every pedal stroke.

"My big idea was to make it to Chalet [Reynard] with 6km to go on my own, because I knew with the wind we had today, if someone was chasing behind they would try to stay on the wheel as much as possible. Once I made it to Chalet, there was a lot of headwind, but I knew in the back they would just play the game."

How it happened

There was action before the race reached Mont Ventoux, with Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Premier Tech) gaining yet more points on the mountains classification, but in reality, nothing really mattered until Mont Ventoux.

The classified climb began with 15.7km to go, making the first 130km to go essentially a giant neutralised zone. Even this early on the climb, there were around just 20 riders left in the front of the race. Among those distanced early was Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike), as world champion Magdeleine Vallieres (EF Education-Oatly) and Célia Gery (FDJ United-Suez) forged off the front. The pair were soon caught, and Gery returned to setting the pace for Vollering. Just 13 riders were left in the group of favourites with 13.5km to go, with most of the leaders isolated within that.

Vollering first attacked with 10.7km to go, splintering the front of the race. She was followed by yellow jersey Reusser and Niewiadoma-Phinney, the top three on general classification together again.

Next to attack from this group, with 9.7km to go, was Niewiadoma-Phinney, which left Vollering and Reusser looking at each other. The gap grew to 20 seconds, then to over 40 seconds, with 7.3km to go. Behind, Vollering and Reusser continued to look at each other, while further down the road, the group containing Longo Borghini, her teammate Paula Blasi, Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM) and Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) closed in.

As Niewiadoma-Phinney forged on alone, Vollering finally managed to distance Reusser inside the final 500m, putting 30 seconds into her. However, it wasn’t enough to secure yellow, which went to Niewiadoma-Phinney.

Results

Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift 2026 stage seven: La Voulte-sur-Rhône > Mont Ventoux (146.8km)

1. Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Pol) Canyon-SRAM, in 4:22:53
2. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ United-Suez, +1:16
3. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) UAE Team L'IMAD, +1:42
4. Marlen Reusser (Sui) Movistar, +1:46
5. Paula Blasi (Esp) UAE Team L'IMAD, +1:48
6. Antonia Niedermaier (Ger) Canyon-SRAM, +1:48
7. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly, +2:01
8. Dominika Włodarczyk (Pol) UAE Team L'IMAD, +3:26
9. Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mau) AG Insurance-Soudal, +3:58
10. Isabella Holmgren (Can) Lidl-Trek, +4:11

General classification after stage seven

1. Kasia Niewiadoma (Pol) Canyon-SRAM, in 24:07:34
2. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ United-Suez, +0:15
3. Marlen Reusser (Sui) Movistar, +0:39
4. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) UAE Team L'IMAD, +2:59
5. Antonia Niedermaier (Ger) Canyon-SRAM, +3:21
6. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly, +4:01
7. Paula Blasi (Esp) UAE Team L'IMAD, +4:32
8. Dominika Włodarczyk (Pol) UAE Team L'IMAD, +5:13
9. Isabella Holmgren (Can) Lidl-Trek, +6:09
10. Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mau) AG Insurance-Soudal, +6:17

The landscape is unforgiving on Mont Ventoux. Lunar and barren, the road gives onto an open expanse, bending upwards to the transmitter tower at the summit, where the wind either whistles or howls.

It’s here, on these slopes, where the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift will climb on its queen stage this Friday, on what is set to be a decisive day in the battle for the yellow jersey.

“It’s definitely a very iconic climb,” said Canyon-Sram’s Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, the race’s winner in 2024, currently third overall. “I don’t believe anyone will be waiting until the final kilometres to make the action or the decisive move. I think, from watching the guys race, we can all expect a hard start and then survival to the top.”

Rising to almost 2,000m, Mont Ventoux – the ‘Giant of Provence’ – has until now only offered victory to men at the Tour; Eddy Merckx (1970) and Marco Pantani (2000) will spring to mind for long-term fans, while more recent stage winners include Chris Froome (2013), Wout van Aert (2021) and Valentin Paret-Peintre (2025).

Tour de France Femmes race director Marion Rousse chose to include the Ventoux in her race because she believes it’s the “most spectacular climb” in world cycling. She's ridden it five times herself, in fact, and said she hadn't even considered whether some might find it too hard.

“We don’t plan the race based on whether the women are able to climb it,” Rousse said ahead of the race. “For me, they’re able to climb anything.”

Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) was a teenager when she first rode to the summit of the Ventoux in 2016. At the time, the Dutchwoman was plotting a career in speed skating, and had travelled to the south of France for a camp with her team-mates.

“One of the trainers went every summer to Mont Ventoux with his bike,” Vollering explained, “and at one point he thought to bring his training group with him.

“It’s where it all started for me. It was the first ever climb I did. The feeling of riding a climb for the first time is quite special, especially because I knew back then already that I was quite good at it. I really enjoyed it, and I really hope I can enjoy it again on the stage itself.”

For Alice Towers, EF Education-Oatly’s former British champion, the prospect of Mont Ventoux is both exciting and intimidating. “I’ve done my research, watching past races and looking on VeloViewer, and I’m expecting the worst,” she said.

Though Towers has never ridden the Ventoux before, she has scaled the Alto de L’Angliru, the steep, Asturian mountain thought to be among the toughest in Europe, which closed this year's Vuelta Femenina. “It was insane. [Ventoux] can’t be worse than that,” she said.

“[Before the race] everyone was like, ‘It should be banned from cycling.’ And I was like, ‘Ah yeah, alright, let’s see.’ Then when I was going up the climb, I was doing about 20rpm. I’m not even exaggerating. I was in the gruppetto, and I was getting pushes from people.”

The gruppetto, the ‘small group’ of riders at the rear of the race, will anticipate a similarly challenging day on stage seven of the Tour. If the leaders break the climbing record, as Niewiadoma and Kim Le Court-Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal) have pledged they will, then there could be a race for some riders to finish within the time limit, set at an extra 20% of the stage winner’s time.

“I’m just trying to get mentally prepared,” said Kiara Lylyk, a Canadian sprinter who rides for French ProTeam Mayenne Monbana My Pie. “It’s a pretty long day, and a lot of climbing – 3,500m or so – so we’ll see. I think you’ve just got to take it as it is in the stage and fight to the end.”

Alongside Lylyk, Liv AlUla Jayco’s Ruby Roseman-Gannon is also expecting to be trailing at the back. “It’s going to be an amazing stage to watch,” she said. “I wish I had a [TV] screen in the gruppetto.”

While only a handful of this edition's starters have actually raced up the climb – 12 of them took part in the short-lived Mont Ventoux Dénivelé Challenge in 2022 – some carried out their own recons in the weeks before the Tour.

One of them was Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal), for whom the Ventoux now holds a special place in her heart; this June, Ghekiere asked her girlfriend to marry her at the summit of the mountain. “I was planning to do a recon, and a lot of pieces fell together that day [to propose], so I thought, ‘Why not?’,” she said.

“One of the things my girlfriend always said to me was, ‘If you ask me on top of a mountain, [I’ll say yes]'... I think I’ll have a lot of good memories and emotions in the stage.”

On Friday afternoon, Ghekiere’s fiancée, as well as Lylyk’s parents, will be among the tens of thousands gathered on the mountain to see a history-making moment: the Tour de France Femmes’ first arrival on Mont Ventoux.

“It’s going to be brutal,” said Marlen Reusser (Movistar), the rider with the honour of wearing the yellow jersey on the day. Who will be leading the race by the end remains a mystery. But the occasion, and the suspense it has fostered, have already made it a stage to be savoured.

Mckenzie Sampson’s daughter was two or three when he was developing Harmonic Riff, his first kit for the Canyon-SRAM women’s WorldTour team.

She would sit on his lap while he worked and play with the colours. When the first fabric swatches arrived, she would wrap them around her shoulders like a cape and run through the house. Later, the team sent her an extra-extra-small jersey, which she wore while they watched the races together.

"That’s my team, that’s my team," she would say whenever Canyon-SRAM appeared on the screen.

For Sampson, the moment became a grounding point through the late nights and endless revisions.

"This is what I'm designing for," Sampson says. "Seeing that [jersey] on her and her excitement…it's so powerful to have."

To the viewer, a cycling kit flashing by at 50 kilometres an hour can register as little more than colour, logos and a quick means of identifying one team from another. To Sampson, an apparel designer who has spent 17 years designing kits, a good jersey should do far more.

It should tell a story.

At this year’s Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, the Canyon-SRAM story is being told in white, pink, blue, orange and green. The team’s switch-out kit takes Sampson’s Luminous design—a graphic inspired by light refracting through coloured glass—and places it on a bright white base, with a “We Femmes” wordmark stretched across the chest, back and sleeves.

The design carries two stories at once.

The first is a decade of Canyon-SRAM, which entered the peloton in 2016 as a women’s programme in its own right rather than an extension of a men’s team. The second looks beyond the professional peloton. We Femmes is built around a global invitation: those who already ride should bring along a woman who does not. It's Canyon's promise to bring at least 1,000 women a year to free rides and events over the next decade.

On the jersey, with its bold colours and font, that phrase feels more like a statement: we, women, belong here.

Sampson is quick to point out that the Tour-specific wordmark isn't his design, but he does very much approve of its attitude.

"The wordmark wasn’t actually done by me, but I kind of dig it," he says. "It’s a little punk rock, and women’s cycling is a little punk rock, you know?"

A story, built in layers

The white switchout kit has had little trouble being seen. After six stages, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney sits third overall, 1:17 behind yellow jersey Marlen Reusser (Movistar). The 2024 champion is chasing a fifth consecutive podium and a second overall title.

Asked whether he is biased because he designed the kit she wears, Sampson laughed.

"I’m going to say yes, definitely," he says. "But I think it’s a mix of her as a rider, her as a person, and she’s an incredible style icon of cycling."

Long before a kit reaches a rider’s shoulders, however, it has to survive a much slower and less glamorous process: trend research, story concepts and discarded designs; technical fabrics and print tests; sponsor requirements and rider fittings; and the awkward geometry of turning a flat graphic into something that works both standing still and moving at race speed.

To that end, Sampson considers himself a product designer first. His primary experience is in performance clothing; the graphics often arrive near the end, “the last little bit” that turns a functioning garment into something people notice.

These days, riders at the highest level receive garments that were specifically tailored to them, rather than the more generic sizes available to consumers.

It is an easily overlooked but significant marker of just how far women’s cycling has professionalised. But for the designer, that creates another challenge: the artwork must remain coherent even as the cut and proportions change from one rider to another.

And the jersey is only one piece. Between racewear, helmets, accessories and off-the-bike clothing, Sampson says a complete collection can contain as many as 65 individual pieces.

The process starts with the team: its riders, their energy and the limits imposed by sponsors and brand colours.

"I've been really fortunate to be a part of some of the most interesting teams, I think, within Specialized and with Canyon," Sampson says. "The teams themselves have really been the key factors in allowing those designs to come forth. Canyon specifically has been an interesting point where [the design] just needs to be bright and bold and powerful and have a certain level of energy that the riders emit."

A cyclist himself, Sampson understands how a kit should fit and move. His inspiration, though, comes from far beyond road racing. He grew up around skateboarding, snowboarding and wakeboarding, then designed kits for his University of Oregon team before landing roles at Adidas and Specialized. His later work includes Boels-Dolmans, Pete Stetina, Canyon's off-road programmes and Canyon-SRAM.

His inspirations might come from fashion forecasting, skate and snowboard graphics as well as the world around him. He gathers textures, colour treatments and visual elements, then begins building in layers: gradients, graphic elements, branding and the story intended to hold it all together.

A team might settle on a concept in three or four attempts, or run through 10, 20 or even 100. Sampson filters them to two or three options, presented from "mild to wild."

Luminous began with coloured light refracting through the stained glass of a Gaudí cathedral in Spain. Harmonic Riff began with music, translating sound, rhythm and vibration into undulating gradients.

"I like to build a story around the design,” Sampson says, giving it “a little more meaning and a little more depth than just being cool for cool’s sake. The more depth and story and meaning you can put behind your design, the better."

The white Tour kit was a hit from the start. It was designed first and impressed when the initial swatches were printed, but the darker blue-purple version felt like a stronger option for year-round.

"There was something unique about the darker blue kit that just felt interesting and powerful and like a really strong starting point," Sampson says.

White was saved for the Tour, where its lighter base also serves a practical purpose in the summer heat.

"Keeping the riders cool is always a huge factor," Sampson says. "It’s not just the meshes, but also the colours included."

Canyon-SRAM’s kits have historically been a fan favourite, and Sampson says he loves seeing the kits out in the wild. But he also knows they can be divisive.

“Graphics in general are polarising,” he said. “Whether you love them or hate them, they’re always going to be polarising.”

The final result is never the designer’s decision alone. Teams, sponsors, manufacturers, materials and performance requirements all have an impact. As Sampson put it, laughing: "If the design sucks, it’s probably not always the designer’s fault."

“Today we have to make it quick because I have to go and recover for tomorrow,” Marlen Reusser begins her press conference after stage six of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

Dressed in the yellow jersey, she’s just ridden 150km and climbed 2,500m through the hills of the Ardèche, all in 33°C heat, but already Friday’s queen stage is on her mind. It’s the day that will likely decide this Tour. More specifically, it's the climb that will likely decide this Tour: Mont Ventoux.

On stage seven, the peloton of the Tour de France Femmes will wade into unchartered waters on the Giant of Provence. Only a handful of the riders have ever raced up the mountain – the 12 that did the short-lived Mont Ventoux Dénivelé Challenge race in 2022 – and only the GC hopefuls have been to recon its slopes. One of them was Reusser, who went a few weeks before the race.

“It was very windy that day and it was impressive,” she said on Wednesday. “I did the downhill, I had quite deep rims, and I was almost crying, so afraid, because there were gusts.

“The uphill is going to be, of course, I expect, super hard. But I think if I could choose a hard day, I would choose more Ventoux than today [stage five] normally.”

That last sentence might surprise some people. As a rider often typecast as a time triallist – to be fair, half of her career victories, including her world title and four European titles, have come against the clock – Reusser isn’t someone fans often associate with long climbs. She’s never won a mountain stage at a Grand Tour, and has tended to lose time to her rivals when the altitude nears 2,000m.

Still, there’s a feeling that the Ventoux might suit her. One colleague in the press pack has dubbed the ascent a “Reusser climb”, for its steady slopes, and lack of prolonged steepness. Reusser, it seems, agrees.

“Actually, I like it,” she said. “I mean, it suits me more than the kind of climbs that we’ve done so far, but it’s going to be brutal, 100%.”

The question now is: does it suit her enough to hold off Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-Sram), the riders who currently make up the podium? Reusser leads by just 12 seconds going into the stage. Would she have liked to have more of a buffer? “If you could have 10 minutes and win the Tour like this, why not?” she laughs.

“No, I’m joking. I think it makes it spicy. It makes it interesting, not only for you and for the public, but also for us. We’re going to see tomorrow.”

It was with hopefulness, perhaps, that one reporter asked Reusser what her strategy was for the climb. “I don’t know,” she replied, and laughed: “If I already had a plan, it would not be smart to say it here, no? But I really don’t know.

“I focus on every day. I knew tomorrow was Mont Ventoux, but now I’ll go recover. Tomorrow I’ll take care of Mont Ventoux. I have a smart sports director, Kelvin Dekker, I’m sure he has some ideas.”

It turns out Dekker has one clear idea in mind. Speaking to Cyclingnews earlier on Thursday, he was bullish about Reusser’s chances: “We're going to try to win the stage, that's the main thing,” he said.

“[Reusser] is going to try and follow Demi, and then we're going to try and beat her. Because I think if we want to win the Tour, we want to beat her on the Ventoux."

Such fighting talk risks heaping pressure on a rider. But Reusser seems unfazed by the challenge. Wearing yellow, she said, “hasn’t changed me anyhow”. With three stages remaining, and edging closer to a career-defining victory, how does she manage to stay so calm? “I am asking myself the same question,” she said.

“Sometimes I have the feeling people, and also my competitors, take cycling very seriously, like very, very, very seriously. And I think, like everything in life, it’s just something. It’s just a fun thing to do, and we should enjoy it. It’s just a bike race. I’m maybe not that crazy about these things as others.”

Still, she’d like to win the Tour de France. She’d really like to win the Tour de France.

As Reusser got up to leave her press conference, she thanked the assembled press and, microphones still rolling, said cheerfully: “Hopefully see you tomorrow.” Her next point of call was to recover. Friday will be a big day.

Kim Le Court-Pienaar recovered from a late mechanical set-back to win a thrilling sprint finish in Tournon-sur-Rhône on day six of the Tour de France Femmes.

After being forced to swap bikes on the penultimate descent of the day, the AG Insurance-Soudal rider bridged the gap to join an eight-rider breakaway, and in the final few metres got her wheel in front, pushing Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) and Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Premier Tech) into second and third place respectively.

After a hot and hilly day in the Ardèche, on a long route that featured six categorised climbs, Marlen Reusser of Movistar remains in the yellow jersey, as Mont Ventoux looms on the horizon of tomorrow's race-defining stage. But for now, the dust is still settling on a fast and frenetic day of racing.

"The race was crazy,' said Le Court-Pienaar immediately afterwards. "I had a mechanical on the downhill before the last climb. I had to change bikes and I was really far, but my team were amazing, they brought me back, slowly but surely back to the bunch. I got back on top of the last climb, which was a really big effort, and I just tried to stay patient, tried to recover.

"Riejanne Markus and I bridged to the breakaway. We got to the front and they were not cooperating, which was obvious, but I was happy to still try. I got a gap in the last few kilometres and Elisa closed me down. When Riejanne Markus made an attack from the back, I knew it was going to happen, because that's the only way she can win a race like this.

"I had to close the gap myself, and I was really, really dead. I was on the limit. I can't believe I still had the legs to sprint, it was really close whether I could give up. I will never give up after this big effort my team did.

"I think the team needed this. I have been really struggling since the TT day and I think this really makes up... Of course we've got GC ambitions, but winning a stage at the Tour de France is very special. People don't really remember top 10, top five, but they do remember stage winners."

Polkadot-wearing Puck Pieterse hoovered up more climbing points today, including the maximum haul for the QOM Sprint to the top of category-two Col de Lalouvesc. And then, with 45km to go, after hanging on the wheels of her FDJ United-SUEZ teammate Demi Vollering, local rider Célia Gery went on the attack during the long fast decent.

Five riders went with the Frenchwoman, as she led the way around roads that are very familiar to her. Along with Pieterse and Gery were Sarah Van Dam (Team Visma-Lease a Bike), Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L'IMAD), Liane Lippert (Movistar) and Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly).

Behind them, a depleted peloton stayed within reach, with the gap just 25 seconds as the race approached the last climb, the category-3 Côte de Boucieu-le-Roi (3.9km à 5.6%), which Puck Pieterse was once again the first to summit.

The maillot jaune of Marlen Reusser was in the chasing group, along with Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM) in the white jersey, plus Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Team Visma-Lease a Bike), Demi Vollering and Paula Blasi (UAE Team L'IMAD), as well as impressive 19-year-old Paula Ostiz (Movistar).

Several big-name riders were struggling with the pace and heat of the day, including Anna van der Breggen from Team SD Worx-Protime, who was dropped. However, after recovering impressively from her enforced bike swap, Kim Le Court-Pienaar rose to the challenge and bridged the gap, along with Riejanne Markus from Lidl-Trek, both joining the breakaway with 10km to go.

Vollering was pulling hard in what remained of the peloton, shrinking the gap and stretching the group during the last technical descent, but it became clear the stage winner was going to come from the ranks of the breakaway.

The lead swapped hands several times in the last 5km, with Kim Le Court-Pienaar first making a move with just over 4km to go, followed by Cédrine Kerbaol and then Riejanne Markus, but Elisa Longo Borghini reigned in each attack.

As the stage went right down to the wire, Pieterse made a late dash for the line, but having made up so much lost ground, a determined Le Court-Pienaar flew past her and won a memorable day of racing by half a bike length.

RESULTS

TOUR DE FRANCE FEMMES Stage 6, Montbrison > Tournon-sur-Rhône (153.4km)

1. Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mau) AG Insurance-Soudal, in 4:01:48
2. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly
3. Puck Pieterse (Ned) Fenix-Premier Tech
4. Sarah Van Dam (Can) Visma-Lease a Bike
5. Célia Gery (Fra) FDJ United-Suez
6. Liane Lippert (Ger) Movistar, all at same time
7. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) UAE Team L'IMAD, +2s
8. Riejanne Markus (Ned) Lidl-Trek, +5s
9. Dominika Włodarczyk (Pol) UAE Team L'IMAD, +28s
10. Noemi Rüegg (Sui) EF Education-Oatly, at same time

Tour de France Femmes 2026: general classification after stage 6

1. Marlen Reusser (Sui) Movistar in 19:43:34
2. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ United-Suez + 0:12
3. Kasia Niewiadoma (Pol) Canyon-SRAM + 1:17
4. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) UAE Team L'Imad + 2:28
5. Antonia Niedermaier (Ger) Canyon-SRAM + 2:40
6. Dominika Włodarczyk (Pol) UAE Team L'IMAD + 2:54
7. Isabella Holmgren (Can) Lidl-Trek + 3:05
8. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly + 3:07
9. Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mau) AG Insurance-Soudal, +3:26
10. Paula Blasi (Esp) UAE Team L'Imad + 3:51

The first time Puck Pieterse climbed Mont Ventoux, she was just 10 years old, riding a mountain bike up one of cycling's most iconic climbs.

Ahead of Friday's summit finish the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, the Dutch rider looked back on that childhood ride and set herself a target.

"I rode it up when I was 10, I think, on my mountain bike," Pieterse told Australia's SBS after Stage 5. "I looked it back. My time was one hour and 58 minutes, so I hope to break that."

Fourteen years later, Pieterse returns to the Giant of Provence under very different circumstances. By the time she reaches the foot of Mont Ventoux on Friday, the peloton will already have covered almost 884 kilometres of racing across seven stages.

In Bédoin, the 24-year-old hopes to arrive wearing the coveted polka-dot jersey, which, for the first time this week, she has openly admitted she is targeting.

Earlier this week, Pieterse was quick to play down suggestions she was chasing the mountains classification, insisting that Fenix-Premier Tech's priority was stage wins and that "the polka-dot jersey is secondary."

Friday's Queen Stage marks the first-ever Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift summit finish on Mont Ventoux, with the peloton tackling the mountain via its southern approach.

British hill-climbing specialist Illi Gardner currently holds the QOM on Strava's verified Bédoin segment with a time of 1:09:29, set during a dedicated record attempt in 2025. The Tour riders, however, will have tougher day out. Before reaching the foot of Ventoux, they must first tackle the Col de la Grande Limite, Col du Colombier and Col de Suzette, arriving in Bédoin with more than 127 kilometres already in their legs.

Once there, the road climbs relentlessly for 15.7 kilometres at an average gradient of 8.8% to the 1,910-metre summit. After the sheltered opening slopes through the forest, the road emerges above Chalet Reynard onto Ventoux's barren and windswept top.

The mountain is likely to shape both the general classification and the Queen of the Mountains competition.

After claiming an expected victory in Stage 4's individual time trial, world time trial champion Marlen Reusser (Movistar) arrived at Stage 5 in yellow to face the first real climbing test of the 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. While Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) eventually won the three-up battle at the line, Reusser left Belleville-en-Beaujolais not just still in yellow, but looking like a genuine contender to wear it all the way to Nice.

On a stage where former Tour winners Vollering and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM) repeatedly attacked one another, Reusser never looked rattled.

Instead, the Swiss rider raced with patience.

While her two biggest rivals traded accelerations in an attempt to drop the other, Reusser measured her efforts, went with the decisive moves and, in a move that could prove invaluable later in the week, even sprinted for bonus seconds at the final Queen of the Mountain. It was clever racing in a Tour that in 2024 came down to a measly four seconds between Vollering and Niewiadoma-Phinney.

By the finish in Belleville-en-Beaujolais, Reusser had not only matched the race's two most recent champions on the climbs but extended her overall lead, ending the day 12 seconds ahead of Vollering in the General Classification and 1:17 ahead of Niewiadoma-Phinney.

“I'm happy. I hoped for this,” Reusser said in the post-race press conference. “I really felt good the last days, and I also was thinking that this is possible, but always, you don't know before really.”

If there was one blemish on an otherwise near-perfect day, it came in the final few hundred metres. In the finishing straight, Niewiadoma jumped early. Vollering and Reusser initially looked at one another, baiting the other to go. It was Vollering who closed the gap to Niewiadoma-Phinney, putting Reusser in an advantageous position.

"Kasia went, then Demi went behind her, and I was like, 'Yeah, that's perfect'," Reusser said.

But as the three riders came back together before the sprint, Reusser briefly touched her brakes, losing the momentum she needed to contest the stage win.

"My momentum was gone. I was asleep. I don't know what I did," she lamented. "I'm really annoyed with myself. This is a bit sad. It's a tour stage win. I don't say that I would have won, but I just did the opposite of winning."

Still, Reusser was quick to put her disappointment into perspective.

"I should be, and I am, super happy about the day and that I'm in yellow still."

Any frustrations aside, Reusser praised both of her rivals.

"I think Demi was brave. She kept trying. You need courage to do that."

Of Niewiadoma-Phinney's attack, she added: "She really took it in the hands. I think she had a good shot there."

Vollering, who was teammates with Reusser at SD Worx for three seasons between 2021 and 2023, returned the respect.

Asked whether the Movistar rider could go on to win the Tour de France Femmes, the Dutchwoman answered without hesitation: "Yeah, for sure. For her it looks very bright now."

But Vollering pointed out that both she and Niewiadoma-Phinney have already won the Tour, while Reusser is still chasing the biggest victory of her career.

"Marlen is the one who never managed to win a Tour yet, so she has to work for it as well."

But she also acknowledged just how formidable her former teammate is.

"I'm sure it will be a hard battle because she's not a rider who you can beat easily because she's very strong,” Vollering said.”But, of course, I will try everything to do that."

Can Reusser hang in the Alps?

Stage 5 answered one of the biggest questions surrounding Reusser's Tour ambitions: could the world time trial champion climb with recent Tour winners Vollering, Niewiadoma-Phinney and Ferrand-Prévot?

On Wednesday's undulating stage, the answer was a definite yes.

Ferrand-Prévot, however, may have seen her GC ambitions all but disappear. The Visma-Lease a Bike rider was dropped on the day's final climb and conceded 2:35 to the leading trio, leaving her almost five minutes behind Reusser in the general classification.

Reusser was reluctant to rule the Frenchwoman out completely, but admitted the gap would be difficult to claw back.

"Five minutes is... I mean, you never say never, but to get five minutes back is hard," she said. "I wouldn't wish for me to have to go for five minutes now somewhere."

That "somewhere" will come quickly.

Thursday's hilly Stage 6 offers little respite before the race reaches its biggest test: Friday's summit finish atop the legendary Mont Ventoux.

Reusser shared that she visited Ventoux ahead of the Tour, and it was the descent, not the climb, that left the biggest impression.

"I was almost crying, so afraid I was, because there were gusts," she said.

Despite that, Reusser believes the mountain itself may actually suit her better than Stage 5's relentless succession of shorter climbs.

"If I could choose a hard day, I would choose more the Ventoux than today,” she stated.

Still, the Swiss rider remains characteristically measured.

She insisted Wednesday's performance hadn't suddenly made her more confident. Instead, she sees every mountain stage as another unknown, where even the strongest riders can have an unexpectedly good, or unexpectedly bad, day.

"You go into a race and you don't know yourself how you're going to feel that day," she said. "You have the same questions yourself."

If stage four’s time trial wasn’t the death knell of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift bid, then Wednesday's fifth stage to Belleville-en-Beaujolais almost certainly was.

Dropped on the penultimate climb with around 30km to go, the defending champion ended up shipping more than two and a half minutes to her GC rivals – Marlen Reusser (Movistar), Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-Sram), and the stage winner Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez). The damage, compounded by the 2:13 she lost in the time trial, means she now sits exactly five minutes adrift of Reusser in the yellow jersey. It’s a mountain even she will find hard to climb.

The first question Ferrand-Prévot faced back at her Visma-Lease a Bike team bus was the obvious one: Is the GC now over for her? “I have to be honest, yes,” she said. “I mean, I haven't seen the gaps yet, but yeah, I think it’s over. Now we have to refocus, change the plan maybe. We have to make a new plan.”

It was testament to Ferrand-Prévot’s professionalism that, on the day she likely lost the Tour, she held herself with grace and composure. “I did my best,” she smiled to each of her team-mates as they came to console her after the stage. In between hugs, she took off her gloves and handed them to a little boy in a PSG football kit.

“Pauline, tu es la meilleure,” one fan shouted – Pauline, you’re the best. She then took the time to give autographs to anyone who asked for one, even stopping to compose a selfie with a family to make sure all three of the children were in the frame.

“I can’t say I’m sad or disappointed, because I didn’t feel bad today,” she said. “To be honest, I felt quite good.”

It was on the steep Col de Durbize, the category-two kicker where Vollering attacked, that Ferrand-Prévot fell out of contention. “Until the climb, I felt good,” she said. “And on the climb, I was still feeling good, but I was just not strong enough to follow. They were just stronger today.”

A loud gasp filled the press room when the TV screens showed the moment Ferrand-Prévot was dropped. Journalists halted their typing and watched as the gap quickly ballooned. Within 4km, it was 40 seconds. Even with the help of her Visma team-mate Sarah Van Dam, Ferrand-Prévot couldn't close the distance to the front trio, and the time continued to grow. It looked like it might tip over three minutes at one point.

“I didn’t really look at the gap,” Ferrand-Prévot said. “I just said, ‘Ok, I’ll just fight until the end and we will see.’ There’s nothing I can do more than pushing on the pedals as much as possible.”

The number that mattered in the end was five minutes – the gap to the yellow jersey.

“Five minutes is... oof,” Reusser, the race leader, said in her press conference. “I mean, you never say never, but to get five minutes back is hard. I wouldn’t wish for me to have to go for five minutes now.”

Ferrand-Prévot’s sports director Rutger Tijssen was more optimistic. “I think anything can happen,” he said. “We know in high performance sports that the dice can tumble, which can happen in two or three days. In short, it’s difficult, but I won’t say that it’s directly over.”

Ferrand-Prévot, the runaway winner by almost four minutes last year, now sits 17th overall, with four stages remaining. Her team-mate Femke de Vries is eighth, 3:11 behind Reusser.

“Maybe now I will have the chance to go for a stage win,” Ferrand-Prévot said. “We have to discuss with the team, but if I cannot help Femke to have the best result possible, I will do it.”

Many expected we would see the defending champion on the attack on Mont Ventoux on Friday. That scene may still happen yet, but the circumstances have now changed. Barring a miraculous comeback, Ferrand-Prévot will not win this Tour de France Femmes.

“Because I won last year, now I say, ‘Ok, it will not change my life to win it again',” she had said ahead of the race. On Wednesday in Belleville-en-Beaujolais, she already seemed at peace with that prospect.

Flag-to-flag TV coverage of every stage of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift is currently under consideration, race director Marion Rousse told Cycling Weekly.

This year, only three of the nine stages have been granted full broadcasts – stages one, five and nine – with hours missing from the the starts of the remaining six stages.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly at the start of stage five in Mâcon, race director Rousse said she and the race organiser, ASO, were giving “serious consideration” to broadcasting the race in full.

“What’s certain is that I’ve discussed this at length with France Télévisions [who produce the broadcast for the race, commissioned by ASO], and we’re giving serious consideration to broadcasting all the stages in full in the future because the women deserve it, and because it works well in terms of audience figures,” Rousse said.

“We’re currently giving it real consideration, which is a step forward. Things are moving in the right direction.”

Fans, riders and team staff were left frustrated on stage three when the partial broadcast missed Sigrid Haugset’s (Uno-X Mobility) stage-winning move, which came with 88km to go, 5km before the coverage began. “The best way to get more public is to show it properly,” Paula Blasi (UAE Team L’IMAD) told Cycling Weekly. “It’s quite sad that we cannot really watch it.”

Rousse said she is “actually quite pleased” to see the debates around TV coverage.

“In the very first edition [in 2022], the question was whether the Tour de France Femmes would work or not. And now, five years on, everyone wants to watch the stages in full,” she said.

“I receive a huge number of messages from cycling enthusiasts who want to watch the stages in full. With the men’s Tour, [full live coverage] has only been around for a short time, and there were years and years without fully broadcast stages.

“We needed to get settled in [as a race] and we didn’t want to rush things, either.”

Asked if financial constraints played a role in the decision to produce partial stage broadcasts, Rousse said: “Of course. Everything’s a question of resources, like the production of the footage. [Full coverage] is a consideration we hadn’t necessarily had in previous years, and one we’re now asking ourselves.

“There’s a real discussion to be had. The stars, middles and ends of stages are spectacular to watch. Let’s hope we can pull it off.”

Demi Vollering collapses on the hot tarmac. Grasping at her helmet strap, she wrestles to free her sweat-soaked head, while her FDJ United-Suez soigneur pours cold water over her shoulders. “Demi, you’re amazing,” a fan shouts through the melee of TV cameras. Vollering’s sports director then appears from out of a team car and brandishes a double thumbs-up to the sprawled-out Dutchwoman. She musters her last reserves of energy to smile back.

Stage four’s time trial went about as perfectly as it could have for Vollering. So much so, that anyone passing by the scene beyond the finish line in Dijon might have thought she had won. Instead, she finished third, 18 seconds behind the stage winner Marlen Reusser (Movistar) but, crucially, almost two minutes ahead of the defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike).

The result puts Vollering in a cosy position in the GC. Approaching the race’s midway point, she has an advantage over everyone but Reusser, who she trails by just 14 seconds. Her other GC rivals – Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L’IMAD), Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-Sram), Paula Blasi (UAE Team L’IMAD) and Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime) – are all around a minute back. Ferrand-Prévot, meanwhile, has sunk to 14th place, and faces the tall order of overhauling two minutes and 13 seconds.

“I’m really happy about the TT,” Vollering said outside her FDJ bus afterwards. In the background, her team staff hugged and high-fived. “I knew that today was really a TT for the TT specialists, for the big powerhouses. I prepared myself mentally that it was possible to lose some time here on riders like Marlen, for example, but that I was so close makes me happy.”

There was a long wait for reporters to speak to Vollering after the stage. Her post-race protocol, the press officer said, had to come first. Vollering began by spinning her legs quickly on the turbo trainer to flush out the lactic acid. She then clambered into an ice bath, before returning, a towel around her waist, to pen a few autographs; for one young boy, she pulled a bottle out of the cage of her bike, signed it, and placed it in his hands.

Some fans, it’s clear, believed they were looking at this race’s winner-elect. Vollering’s entourage were careful not to get ahead of themselves.

“It’s like a boxing match – we still have five rounds to go,” said Stephen Delcourt, FDJ team manager. “Today we knew it was an individual effort, and for us, it was important to put pressure on the others and make a gap. I think Demi made a gap with the other five contenders, but we still have Marlen. Marlen is a few seconds ahead of Demi, and we don’t expect Marlen to explode.”

Reusser, in a way, is the wild card of this year’s Tour. While her Grand Tour pedigree has already been proved – she finished second at both the Giro d’Italia Women and the Vuelta Femenina – this is her first time leading a team against all of the peloton’s top riders, and it’s hard to know how she’ll stack up.

“I think every race in my life I am underestimated,” the Swiss rider, a former domestique for Vollering at SD Worx-Protime, said in a press conference the day before the race began. After her victory on day four, she made clear her “Project Dijon” – her plan to win the stage and take the yellow jersey – has now turned into “Project Nice”.

“I'm super happy that I'm here in yellow,” Reusser said. “If I stand in Nice in yellow, I'm even happier, but you don't know. We've seen it in so many stage races; so many things can happen, it can change. I'm not at all like, ‘I have yellow, I've got to have it in Nice,’ but I think it's possible.”

Ferrand-Prévot and her Visma-Lease a Bike team, similarly, are far from ruling out their chances of winning. “This year is not lost,” sports director Jos van Emden said. “Everything is still possible.”

If Reusser is the unknown entity, then Ferrand-Prévot is the sure bet. Vollering will only need to think back 12 months to remember what it’s like to be mercilessly dropped by the Frenchwoman; in just the final 9km of the Col de la Madeleine last year, Ferrand-Prévot put over three minutes into the Dutchwoman. It’s a fact that makes her current two-minute deficit seem a lot less significant.

“This year, we have Ventoux, which is a long climb, too,” Ferrand-Prévot teased after her time trial losses. “It’s good now to not be the favourite. It’s like, ‘Ok, I need to catch them.’ It’s also something I like.”

A knockout blow could come at any time, to return to FDJ boss Delcourt's boxing analogy. Vollering's sparring well, but she mustn't drop her guard.

“We have only one goal,” Delcourt said. “I repeat: we have only one goal, and it’s the yellow [jersey].

“We know that Demi is in super shape. We want to take care of her. We know that a crash can arrive at any second on any corner. Now we want to be positive to search for another step on the total group for tomorrow, to be close to Demi, to protect her, and put pressure on the others.”

There's still plenty of road to race yet.

Despite being just 21 kilometres long, the Stage 4 individual time trial at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift delivered the first major shake-up in the general classification. As anticipated, world time trial champion Marlen Reusser (Movistar) powered to victory, while the rest of the GC contenders spent the day trying to limit their losses.

Riders like Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) and Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ) emerged from the day in strong positions, now sitting fifth and second overall respectively. Defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma | Lease a Bike), however, endured a nightmare, conceding more than two minutes and tumbling to 14th in the general classification.

For Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM), the day went exactly as planned. The 2024 Tour de France Femmes champion finished 13th on the stage, 1:08 behind Reusser, but successfully limited her losses to the other GC favourites and, crucially, finished ahead of Ferrand-Prévot before the race reaches the high mountains.

"The goal for today was to minimise losses to riders like Demi Vollering, Elisa Longo Borghini and Marlen Reusser," Niewiadoma-Phinney said after the stage. "Of course it's nice to be in front of Pauline ahead of Mont Ventoux and the other hard stages."

Heading into the Tour's first major climbing test, Niewiadoma-Phinney sits sixth overall, with just 1:09 separating the top six riders.

The Polish rider revealed she had invested heavily in improving her time trialling, fully aware of how important the stage could be in shaping this year's Tour.

"I felt that I found my flow. I spent huge amounts of time working on my TT skills, because as everyone knows, I wasn't the best at it," she said. "As you can see, if you believe in something and you put a good amount of work in, anything is possible."

Niewiadoma-Phinney was delighted with her performance and admitted she would have gladly accepted the result before rolling down the start ramp.

"One hundred percent. I'm super grateful for all the people that were with me on the journey to get to this place. The Tour de France is such a big goal for myself and the team. We want to come here to bring the yellow jersey home again. That result puts us closer to that dream."

She credited the ride to a collective effort that included technical work on her position, equipment and coaching, while jokingly acknowledging some advice from her husband, former American time trial specialist Taylor Phinney.

"I'm married to a TT specialist so, for once, I listened to his advice," she laughed. "I'm very lucky to be surrounded by professional people, my team looking for details to improve my position, Canyon taking me to a wind tunnel, my coach working on me physically. I think it was a combination of massive teamwork."

With the race now turning towards the mountains, Niewiadoma-Phinney said the Tour would now "properly start." Relieved to have the time trial behind her, she is eager to return to terrain that better suits her strengths.

"I was looking forward to this particular moment to be done with and focus on the climbs to come. Tomorrow is going to be a super hard stage. We're here to be aggressive, we have a strong team, and we want to do our best. We're in great shape, so what else can you do other than race your bike now?"

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot knew she wouldn’t win stage four’s time trial at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, but she maybe didn’t expect to tumble more than two minutes down the general classification.

Thirty-fourth on the day, the Frenchwoman finished 2:13 adrift of the stage winner, and new yellow jersey wearer, Marlen Reusser (Movistar), and 1:55 off last year’s runner-up, Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez), her big GC rival.

As a result, the defending champion is now 14th overall, and will need to claw back time over the next five stages if she’s to retain her yellow jersey.

“I did my best and I pushed as hard as I could. Now there’s nothing I can do,” Ferrand-Prévot told the media beyond the finish line.

“It was quite a lot of stress. Even though I finished far off, I still prepared a lot. I’m glad this day is over.”

The 21km course between Gevrey-Chambertin and Dijon always suited the peloton’s mightiest specialists against the clock. Ferrand-Prévot, by contrast, a diminutive climber, hadn’t raced a time trial in more than five years, having switched her ambitions to mountain biking.

Asked ahead of the race if she felt she was starting from zero in her time trial preparation, she laughed that it was more “minus 10 – [but] I did my homework quite well”.

That preparation included wind tunnel testing and positional work to relieve pressure from the two surgeries she had had to treat iliac artery endofibrosis. This meant that she sat quite high in the saddle. “It wasn’t the prettiest sight, it wasn’t the fastest for everyone else in the peloton, but it was the fastest for me,” she said.

Attention will now turn at Visma-Lease a Bike to how Ferrand-Prévot can recover her GC position before Sunday's finale in Nice. “This year is not lost,” her sports director Jos van Emden said. “This is some kind of starting point.”

Wednesday’s fifth stage is expected to be raced like a one-day Classic, with eight categorised climbs on the route to Belleville-en-Beaujolais. There’s also the race’s queen stage still to come: a 21km climb to Mont Ventoux on day seven.

“Last year, on the Col de la Madeleine, I took quite a lot of time [ed – 3:03 to Vollering]. This year, we have Ventoux, which is a long climb, too,” Ferrand-Prévot said.

And in the face of disappointment, she picked herself up, and made sure to stay optimistic: “It’s also good now to not be the favourite. It’s like, ‘Ok, I need to catch them.’ It’s also something I like.”

Marlen Reusser powered to time trial victory on stage four of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift in Dijon on Tuesday, and moved into the yellow jersey.

The Movistar rider, time trial world champion, was the overwhelming favourite for the race against the clock, but she only pipped Lieke Nooijen (Visma-Lease a Bike) by four seconds. Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) finished third, 17 seconds behind Reusser, with Britain's Zoe Bäckstedt (Canyon-SRAM) in fourth, two seconds further back.

Reusser averaged 45.793kph over the 21km course, and led at the first checkpoint by 19 seconds, which narrowed to the finish. It's the 34-year-old's third Tour stage win, two of which have been time trials. Her final fastest time was 27:30.09.

On a blazing day in Burgundy, there was a lot of movement on general classification. The race leader after stage three, Sigrid Haugset (Uno-X Mobility), was replaced by Reusser after losing X to the winner, while Reusser's GC rivals Vollering, Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L'IMAD) all lost varying amounts of time.

Vollering was the best-of-the-rest in terms of those vying for yellow, losing just 17 seconds to Reusser, meaning she is just 14 seconds behind, in second. Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) is up to third overall, 54 seconds behind Reusser, after she finished seventh on Tuesday.

Longo Borghini is now fifth overall, her run-in hampered by a bike change, just ahead of Niewiadoma, who lost just 1:08 to Reusser in an event which is not thought to be her speciality. The biggest GC loser was defending champion Ferrand-Prévot, who lost 2:12 to Reusser, and now sits in 14th overall.

"I’m super super happy," Reusser said in her TV interview. "This was the idea that we had for a long time. It’s the first Tour de France that I saw as my goal for the year, I really targeted it. I am here as a leader, and I knew it was going to start in Switzerland, on Swiss national day, and we would have a TT on the fourth day, so it was our project Dijon. The yellow of the mustard.

"It was our project Dijon, and it worked out. It’s always so hard, and you know it’s not necessarily going to happen, but that it happened like this, I’m super happy."

A solid fastest time was set early by Sandrine Tas (Lotto Intermarché), who rode the course in 28:49.39, this was then bettered by her compatriot Lotte Claes (Fenix-Premier Tech), who went 24 seconds faster. This stood until Dutch rider Lieke Nooijen (Visma-Lease a Bike) went 50 seconds faster than Claes, and her time looked impregnable, until Reusser came along and pipped it.

The shift on general classification has set the race up perfectly ahead of a couple of hilly days, before the prospect of Mont Ventoux on Friday's stage seven. Stage five, from Mâcon to Belleville-en-Beajoulais, has eight classified climbs in 140km, with 2,880m of elevation in total.

Results

Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift 2026 stage four: Gevrey Chambertin > Dijon (21km)

1. Marlen Reusser (Sui) Movistar, in 27:30.9
2. Lieke Nooijen (Ned) Visma-Lease a Bike, +3s
3. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ United-Suez, +17s
4. Zoe Bäckstedt (GBr) Canyon-SRAM, +19s
5. Mischa Bredewold (Ned) SD Worx-Protime, +45s
6. Kristen Faulkner (USA) EF Education-Oatly, +54s
7. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly, +54s
8. Lotte Claes (Bel) Fenix-Premier Tech, +54s
9. Riejanne Markus (Ned) Lidl-Trek, +1:01
10. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) UAE Team L'IMAD, +1:02

General classification after stage four

1. Marlen Reusser (Sui) Movistar, in 11:47:36
2. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ United-Suez, +14s
3. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly, +54s
4. Sigrid Haugset (Nor) Uno-X Mobility, +56s
5. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) UAE Team L'IMAD, +1:03
6. Kasia Niewiadoma (Pol) Canyon-SRAM, +1:09
7. Paula Blasi (Esp) UAE Team L'IMAD, +1:12
8. Anna van der Breggen (Ned) SD Worx-Protime, +1:17
9. Antonia Niedermaier (Ger) Canyon-SRAM, +1:43
10. Femke de Vries (Ned), +1:47

You can’t escape the tagline of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. It’s everywhere, on casquettes, on musettes, on advertising. It’s simple: “Watch the Femmes”. It’s a neat idea from title sponsors Zwift to encourage people to tune in to what has quickly become the biggest women’s bike race in the world.

I wish it was that easy. Only three of the nine stages of the Tour de France Femmes have been, or will be, broadcast in full: stage one around Lausanne, five from Mâcon to Belleville-en-Beaujolais, and the closing day in Nice. It means for the other six days, fans will have to put up with reduced television coverage. On top of the fact that the race is behind an expensive paywall in the UK and the USA, “Watch the Femmes” seems more like a dream than a reality.

Broadcasters TNT Sports (UK) and Peacock (US) cannot be bashed for this. Warner Bros. Discovery bought the rights to show all ASO races on its channel TNT in the UK; ASO commissioned France TV to produce the feed, and in that transaction made the apparent business decision that fans don’t need to see huge sections of the race.

This is the same ASO that gave us less than 90 minutes of footage from Paris-Roubaix Femmes in April. For all the deserved praise ASO gets for putting on marquee women’s races like this – albeit years too late – it is clear that the organiser should also be criticised for providing an average of less than two and a half hours a day of footage.

Screening the closing kilometres of races is nothing new, but the decision means that key moments are missed. This was made patently clear on Monday’s stage three, when Uno-X Mobility rider Sigrid Haugset attacked before the TV cameras began rolling, with 88km to go; this came well after overall favourite Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) crashed, with 143km to go. Fans could see it on social media, which is exactly how women’s cycling fans kept up with races over a decade ago. Times have moved on, ASO should, too. On a stage like Monday’s, with a first-category climb in the first 24km, it was obvious that things would happen before the film crews were in action.

Start-to-finish coverage is not a pipe dream. It happened for every stage of the men’s Tour de France last month, and it’s available for plenty of WorldTour races, including the concurrently-running Tour of Poland. Fans wanting to watch all of the biggest women’s race of the year could instead watch all 232km of a forgettable sprint stage in Poland, but couldn’t see Haugset’s winning attack.

Choosing not to film huge sections of the race is a business decision made by ASO. Clearly, it’s one that holds back cycling, prevents fans from seeing key moments, denies smaller squads the opportunities to get television time by going in early breaks, and makes it harder to understand the whole picture of the race.

Stage four’s individual time trial saw 59 rider's start's not shown on TV, with coverage beginning at 3:45pm CEST, almost an hour after the first person headed down the start ramp. The winner could be in that cohort.

Fortunately, the cause of start-to-finish coverage is not something that myself and Cycling Weekly are alone in arguing for. On the eve of this fifth edition of the Tour de France Femmes, The Cyclists’ Alliance (TCA), the independent body that represents the women’s peloton, warned that partial coverage would mean fans miss “the attacks, the tactics, and the moments that could define the race”.

Kate Verroneau, director of women’s strategy at Zwift, the race’s title partner, posted on Instagram on Monday: “Moments like this are exactly why I’m so passionate about getting more eyes on women’s cycling. It’s no longer enough to broadcast only part of the race.

“When we miss the opening hours, we miss the attacks, the risks, the stories, and often the very moments that define a stage. Change is coming, but only if we keep working together. Fans, sponsors, media, riders and teams all have a role to play. Keep raising your voices, keep tuning in. These athletes are putting on a show. Let’s make sure the whole world gets to Watch the (full coverage) Femmes.”

Former world champion Lizzie Deignan was perplexed by the lack of coverage on For The Love of Cycling: “It was very hard to follow from home, it was like back in the old days, refreshing newsfeeds, trying to figure out what’s going on. There’s no substitute for footage. I don’t really understand why that can happen.”

TNT Sports’ Orla Chennaoui put it simpler in an Instagram reel: “What the heck? We still, despite how proven the interest is, we cannot get live TV coverage. ASO, what are you doing?”

The beauty of a Grand Tour is to see the race play out in its entirety, to see a whole country, to understand a complete storyline. To only show part of the race is to deny fans the whole plot, the whole work of art. Imagine going to see The Odyssey and only being allowed to watch the final 90 minutes.

Women’s cycling deserves better, and we should be able to watch all of the Femmes.

This piece is part of The Leadout, the offering of newsletters from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here.

If you want to get in touch with Adam, email adam.becket@futurenet.com.

The 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift has its first significant day for the battle for general classification on Tuesday 4 August with stage four's 21km individual time trial from Gevrey-Chambertin to Dijon.

Last year's race did not have a time trial, but this year's rolling effort should see the contenders for yellow split up before the mountains begin properly. There is just one time check, at 9.5km, the Lacets de Marsannay, which is actually the top of a 2km hill at 6.7%. After that, riders will crest the rise to Corcelles-les-Monts, which peaks at 300m at 4.8%. Neither of these climbs are categorised, and it's downhill to the finish in Dijon.

The first rider will be the lanterne rouge, or last woman on general classification, Romina Hinojosa (Lotto Intermarché) at 2:51pm CEST (1:51pm BST/8:51am EDT). Riders will then set out at minute intervals until Émilie Morier (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93) at 4:48pm, when there will be two-minute gaps all the way to the last rider, Sigrid Haugset (Uno-X Mobility), who took control of the yellow jersey on stage three.

The GC favourites come late in the day, with Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime), a former TT world champion, off at 4:54pm, Antonia Nierdermaier (Canyon-SRAM) at 4:58pm, Vuelta España Femenina champion Paul Blasi (UAE Team L'IMAD) at 5:04pm, and reigning world champion Marlen Reusser (Movistar) at 5:08pm. They're followed by Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike) at 5:10pm, Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) at 5:14pm, Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L'IMAD) at 5:16pm, and Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) at 5:24pm.

However, it won't just be the riders aiming for yellow who will aim for a solid ride, with contenders for the stage win also including British champion Zoe Bäckstedt (Canyon-SRAM), who sets of at 4:29pm, Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) at 5:18pm, and Franziska Koch (FDJ United-Suez) at 3:51pm.

Tour de France Femmes stage 4 ITT start times

The race jury at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift will pay “particular attention” to riders’ clothing ahead of Wednesday’s individual time trial, following reports of bra padding to improve aerodynamics.

On Sunday, Dutch outlet Wielerflits reported that several women’s WorldTour teams had expressed concern about riders using larger, padded bras as a chest fairings – objects inserted into the skinsuit to smooth the airflow around the body.

Wielerflits said the practice had been seen previously in women’s cycling, including at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Research suggests that large chest fairings can result in time gains of almost a second per kilometre.

UCI rule 1.3.032 specifically prohibits the use of any accessories that “modify the morphology” of a rider. Riders had previously been known to place water bottles or radios down the front of their jersey.

Following stage three of the Tour de France Femmes, the race organiser, ASO, shared a press release that warned extra checks will be present during stage four’s time trial.

The full statement read: “Riders must be to the final checks before the race (bikes and outfit) no later than 10 minutes before their respective start time. Particular attention will be paid to compliance with article 1.3.032 of the UCI regulations, including non-essential elements and clothing or other items/accessories worn by a rider (including but not limited to helmets, glasses, shoes or in-race communication devices) which could modify riders’ morphology.”

The UCI rulebook describes “non-essential elements” as “any element which does not have a purpose which is exclusively of clothing or protection, or which is not strictly necessary for the functionality of the clothing, or other item, or accessory”.

Any rider found to have worn “non-compliant" clothing will face disqualification and a fine of 50-200 CHF (£46-184, $62-248), according to the governing body’s regulations.

It is uncertain how the race jury will carry out checks for padded bras. Some reports have suggested inspections be done privately by female commissaires. Even then, confusion remains as to what exactly the jury will be looking for.

“The problem is how are you going to police it?” Lidl-Trek’s head of technical and innovation, Koen de Kort, told The Athletic. “That’s the biggest issue. You can say it’s not allowed [but] how can you say how much a woman needs? That’s time to get pretty much into a grey area of what you’re allowed to check.”

Stage four’s time trial stretches 21km between Gevrey-Chambertin and Dijon, with a 1.8km climb in the first half. It is scheduled to start at 14:51 local time (CET).

“Sad”, “strange”, and “a shame” are some of the words riders and sports directors used to describe the limited TV coverage of this year's Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

Just three of the nine stages – stage one around Lausanne, five from Mâcon to Belleville-en-Beaujolais, and the closing day in Nice – have been granted full, flag-to-flag broadcasts, with hours of coverage missing from the remaining six stages.

On Monday, Uno-X Mobility rider Sigrid Haugset attacked before the TV cameras began rolling, with 88km to go, and pulled off the farthest solo victory ever at the race. Had she made her move 5km later, fans at home would have been able to see it happen. Instead, the TV feed, licensed by the race organiser, ASO, missed it by around seven minutes.

“There wasn’t so much to see,” Haugset, the race’s new yellow jersey wearer, played down after the finish. “It wasn’t so much of a punchy attack, either... It was more like slowly drifting.”

Other riders, however, were more critical of the missed action when asked by Cycling Weekly.

“The best way to get more public is to show it properly,” said Paula Blasi (UAE Team L’IMAD). “Today, I felt it was such an incredible race. [I have] all the love for men’s [cycling], but when Tadej [Pogačar] goes, it is so easy to predict. With women’s racing, sometimes you have much more interesting moves. It’s quite sad that we cannot really watch it.”

On the eve of this fifth edition of the Tour de France Femmes, The Cyclists’ Alliance (TCA), the independent body that represents the women’s peloton, warned that partial coverage would mean fans miss “the attacks, the tactics, and the moments that could define the race”.

“For the biggest race in women’s cycling, partial coverage is no longer enough,” TCA wrote. “The demand is undeniable and we are asking for the coverage to catch up.”

TCA also criticised the broadcast of Paris-Roubaix Femmes earlier this year, describing it as a “massive affront to women’s cycling” that only the final hour and a half was shown live.

More than 26 hours of this year’s Tour de France Femmes will be broadcast live across the nine stages – an average of around two and a half hours a day. The men’s race, by comparison, was shown in full, every moment of every stage, for 21 days.

Carmen Small, sports director at EF Education-Oatly, believes the partial coverage of the women’s race is “a bit strange”.

“You would think they would do [full coverage] at least now. It’s only nine stages, it’s not that we’re having three weeks like the men,” she said.

TV coverage is particularly important for teams at the Tour as it gives them crucial airtime for their sponsors. “We race aggressively to show the jersey. We hope for results to show the jersey,” Small explained. “I mean, it’s all together, right? It’s a shame that they’re not doing the whole entire stage.”

Picnic PostNL’s Josie Nelson agreed. “I think for the biggest race of the year, they could probably pull it out the bag a bit better, to be honest,” she said. “On days like today, when everything kicks off at the start, it’s a shame that no one gets to see how the race pans out.”

Another key moment the TV broadcast missed on stage three was a crash involving one of the GC favourites, Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez), which happened with 143km to go – 55km before the broadcast went live.

For those who weren't able to see it, the race organiser, ASO, shared a mobile phone video of the aftermath on social media.

Stephen Delcourt, Vollering’s FDJ United-Suez team manager, said he questioned ASO on the morning of the stage about broadcasting more of the race. “I don’t want to blame [ASO]. I know they’ve improved a lot of things this year, [by adding] a time trial and a ninth stage,” he said. “Before we had no Tour de France, we had nothing, we had no TV, and I think we’re improving every year.

“Yes, we dream about full coverage, especially for a race like this, because it was really beautiful at the beginning of the stage. You just need to be patient.”

The Tour de France Femmes continues on Tuesday with an individual time trial. Coverage is due to begin at 15:45 local time (CET), meaning the starts of at least 55 riders – 40% of the peloton – will not be broadcast.

“Women’s cycling has the audience and this race is the pinnacle of the sport,” TCA wrote on Instagram on Monday. “Now it needs full start-to-finish coverage.”

Correction: an earlier version of this article said that two stages were granted full broadcasts. This was corrected to three to reflect the flag-to-flag coverage of stage one.

"I was so dizzy at the finish, I couldn't lift my arms off the bike."

At the finish line of Stage 3 of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, Sigrid Ytterhus Haugset had nothing left.

The Norwegian spent some 85 kilometres off the front of the peloton solo, and reached the line in Poligny too exhausted to celebrate in style.

"I know my boyfriend will be so angry at me for not celebrating," she laughed afterwards. "But I couldn't. I could not lift my arms off the bike. It was impossible," she said in the post-race interview.

Instead, Haugset barely managed a one-handed victory salute, completely spent and overwhelmed by what had just happened.

In addition to delivering fans one of the most remarkable solo rides the race has ever seen, Haugset also delivered Norway several historic firsts.

With her performance, Haugset became the first Norwegian to win a stage of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, the first Norwegian rider to pull on the celebrated yellow jersey, and the author of what race broadcasters described as the longest successful solo victory in the history of the women's Tour.

When asked if winning a Tour stage was a dream come true, Haugset admitted that she'd never even considered the possibility.

"I feel like I have to say yes… but I never thought it was possible. So sitting here… it's unreal."

So who is the woman who has suddenly become one of the biggest stories of this year's Tour?

1. She comes from a tiny Norwegian village

Born on 1 March 1999, Haugset comes from Berkåk, a village of just 1,000 people in Trøndelag, central Norway.

2. She served in the military after high school

Haugset entered the Norwegian military after finishing high school.

Norway has mandatory conscription for men and women, although not every eligible citizen is selected to serve. Those chosen typically complete an initial 12-month period of military service before becoming part of the reserves.

3. She's a former runner

As a child, Haugset's passion had been football. She played throughout high school and later found success as a middle-distance runner.

Representing Rennebu IL and later Strindheim IL, her recorded personal bests include:

• 4min 49.10sec for 1,500 metres
• 10min 19.9sec for an indoor 3,000 metres
• 10min 27.05sec for an outdoor 3,000 metres
• 17min 40.46sec for 5,000 metres
  

4. Injuries changed the course of her career

"Where I come from, a small place in Norway, it was never an option to start cycling. Instead, we played football, handball, cross-country skiing, we went hiking and so on," says Haugset.

Instead, she came to cycling, as so many before her have, through injury.

Haugset has explained that two stress fractures in her lower back within six months forced her away from running. Looking for a way to stay fit, she spent countless hours on the indoor trainer before eventually buying a road bike to train outside.

Then she entered a Norwegian Cup race, and the rest, as they say, is history.

5. She only started racing bikes at 22

While many WorldTour riders have been racing since childhood, Haugset entered her first cycling race in 2021, at the age of 22.

She signed with Team Coop-Hitec Products later that year and raced with the programme through the end of 2025.

Her rise to the top level of the sport has been remarkably quick. Within five years of pinning on her first race number, she's now wearing the maillot jaune.

6. She's quietly become one of Norway's strongest time triallists

Haugset has collected four consecutive medals at the Norwegian elite national time trial championships between 2023 and 2026 —three bronze and one silver.

Other key career highlights include winning the Norwegian road race championships with a solo breakaway earlier this season, and a fourth place in the GC at the 2024 Vuelta a Extremadura Féminas.

Those performances highlighted the engine that powered her remarkable Tour solo today.

7. She raced Paris-Roubaix with a fractured hip

Paris-Roubaix Femmes is already one of cycling's toughest races, and in 2025, Haugset's ride was even more painful.

After crashing with 60 kilometres remaining in the race, Haugset climbed back on her bike to finish the race. Only afterwards did scans reveal she had fractured her hip.

She later admitted that, in hindsight, continuing probably wasn't the smartest decision, but in the middle of Paris-Roubaix, all she wanted to do was reach the velodrome.

“When you’re in a race, you want to finish,” she explained. She was subsequently sidelined for approximately two and a half months before returning later in the season and eventually earning a WorldTour contract with Uno-X Mobility.

8. She was originally selected as a climbing domestique

Haugset is currently on a two-year contract with Uno-X Mobility.

She was selected for the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift roster (her second appearance) not for her yellow-jersey potential but rather as a climbing domestique.

The team had designated Katrine Aalerud as its GC leader, with a target of finishing in the top 10. Haugset’s published role was to provide support later in hilly stages, although the team explicitly left open the possibility of allowing her to pursue stage opportunities from different race situations.

9. A huge day for Norway

With her performance in Poligny, Haugset didn't just win the biggest race of her career; she won big for Norway.

Haugset became the first Norwegian to win a stage of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, and the first Norwegian woman to wear the yellow jersey.

In doing so, she joins an elite list of Norwegians who have worn the Tour de France yellow jersey, which includes just three others: male riders Thor Hushovd, Alexander Kristoff and, most recently, Torstein Træen.

In an incredible day of racing, Norwegian national champion Sigrid Haugset led for the majority of the route between Geneva and Poligny and held on to become the first Norwegian stage winner in the history of the Tour de France Femmes, securing a solo victory that sees her move from 46th place right into the leader's yellow jersey.

After attacking and taking the lead with 89km left to go, the Uno-X Mobility rider dug in deep and stayed ahead of the Belgian Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx - Protime), who battled alone and in vain to catch her. Haugset's heroic ride has seen her achieve the longest solo breakaway victory in Tour de France Femmes history, and the very first for a Norwegian rider.

Marianne Vos (Team Visma - Lease a Bike) crossed the line third and with that result moves into third place in the General Classification.

Kim Le Court (AG Insurance - Soudal) finished in fifth and maintains her second place in the GC, with Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) also holding her third-place spot in the GC. However, erstwhile leader Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime), who was missing in action for most of today and finished 80th, has plummeted out of the top 10 and currently sits in 67th position.

The 156.5km-long stage, which took riders up into the mountains for the first time and saw the race move from Switzerland into France, was contested in blazing hot conditions, with temperatures hitting 37°C in the shade.

But that didn't deter Haugset, a tough cookie who once rode 58km of the infamously bumpy Paris-Roubaix race with broken hip. Wearing the colours of a Norwegian champion, the Uno-X Mobility rider pushed through the pain of her epic solo ride with Viking-like determination, and finished the stage with a broad grin.

"I never thought it was possible," said Haugset in the post-stage interview. "It's unreal. When I went, it wasn't many seconds, and I thought, yeah, she will catch me. And I thought: 'Shall I just drop down to her? Yeah OK, second is good.' But I kept on.

"I was thinking about all my teammates, and everyone cheering from home. And it was like, I had to give it all. And yeah... I can't believe that she didn't catch me. And in the Norwegian jersey – it's fantastic."

Early in the day, with 143km to go, race favourite and 2023 Tour de France Femmes winner Demi Vollering was involved in a crash, but the FDJ United–Suez rider was quickly back on her bike and riding again.

However, while Vollering and Kim Le Court (AG Insurance - Soudal Team) stayed in the chasing group, along with defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Team Visma - Lease a Bike) and Célia Gery (FDJ United - SUEZ), the story of today's stage was about the battle between Haugset and her only real challenger, Lotte Kopecky.

The Belgian came within 10 seconds of catching Haugset with 10km left to go, but the Norwegian dug deep and as the finish line came within 5km the gap went back out to well over 30 seconds and kept growing.

RESULTS

TOUR DE FRANCE FEMMES STAGE THREE: Geneva › Poligny (156.5km)

1. Sigrid Haugset (Nor) Uno-X Mobility in 4:05:59
2. Lotte Kopecky (Bel) SD Worx - Protime, + 1:24
3. Marianne Vos (Ned) Team Visma - Lease a Bike, + 2:48
4. Usoa Ostolaza (España) Laboral Kutxa - Fundación Euskadi
5. Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mau) AG Insurance-Soudal
6. Noemi Rüegg (Sui) EF Education-Oatly
7. Célia Gery (Fra) FDJ United - SUEZ
8. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly
9. Malwina Mul (Pol) Cofidis
10. Monica Trinca Colonel (Ita) Liv AlUla Jayco, all at the same time

GENERAL CLASSIFICATION AFTER STAGE THREE

1. Sigrid Haugset (Nor) Uno-X Mobility in 11:17:56
2. Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mau) AG Insurance-Soudal, + 2:02
3. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ United-Suez, + 2:06
4. Noemi Rüegg (Sui) EF Education-Oatly, + 2:10
5. Marianne Vos (Ned) Team Visma - Lease a Bike, "
6. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly, "
7. Elisa Longo Borghini (Italian) UAE Team L'Imad, "
8. Kasia Niewiadoma (Pol) Canyon-SRAM, "
9. Puck Pieterse (Ned) Fenix-Premier Tech, "
10. Niamh Fisher-Black (NZ) Lidl - Trek, "

The speed bump came out of nowhere. Barrelling at 60kph towards the one-kilometre-to-go banner on stage two of the Tour de Suisse, Urška Žigart was feeling confident. She darted out of a chase group, kicked ahead, and began closing the gap to a tearaway rider. The next moment, her body hit the ground like a rag doll.

“I have an image in my head where my bike is flying to one side and I’m flying to the other,” she tells Cycling Weekly. “But the next things are very blurry.”

The diagnosis could have been so much worse. Unconscious along the finishing straight, Žigart was rushed to hospital in Locarno, where the doctors diagnosed her with a broken jaw.

Just six weeks on, however, she’s racing at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, crowning a remarkable six-week recovery. “Remarkable?” she smiles, and tries to play it down. “I don’t know about that.” She then takes us back to the beginning.

“The last thing I remember [from before the crash] is, because the men raced after us, Tadej [Pogačar, my partner] and his UAE team bus was going to the parking on the left side of the road, so I moved to the left side of the group and I was waving to the bus.

“I remember the last person I saw was their soigneur waving back at me. I saw there was one girl in front, and I was thinking, ‘Ok, we’re not supposed to be pulling or attacking or whatever, but just let me close this gap and we can roll to the finish.’”

Then came the speed bump, which jolted Žigart through the air.

The 29-year-old's sports director, Jolien D’Hoore, was at the scene within minutes. “I’ve never seen something like this in my life,” she says. “She was unconscious for a few minutes. As soon as I saw that, I started running back to the team car, and then the other DS came to Urška. It was really scary – something I will never forget.”

Due to the simple nature of the fracture, Žigart was fortunate to not require surgery. That doesn’t mean she wasn’t in pain, though. “They gave me quite a lot of medication to keep me from moving,” the Slovenian says. “I was trying to show them I was in pain by sticking my fingers inside my mouth.

“But I have to say that, after that, I bounced back really quickly. Of course, we did a lot of concussion tests, we started slowly, but I had no symptoms, other than a small fracture at the mandibular joint.”

In the days after the crash, Žigart flew to Belgium to see a doctor, who checked her jaw was correctly aligned. Everything seemed stable, so she was given the green light to begin training again, at first on the turbo trainer at home. “Then I started pushing the doctor to let me go outside slowly, and it was up from there,” she says.

Eleven days passed before Žigart’s wheels touched the tarmac again. She began with an easy ride – “it was all very touch and go; I wasn’t sure how a speed bump or a little hole in the road was going to move my jaw” – but everything went smoothly. All of a sudden, racing the Tour de France looked like a possibility again.

At the start of July, Žigart flew to Tignes to join her team-mates at their pre-Tour altitude camp. The team chefs chopped up her food so she didn’t have to chew it very much. Out on the road, not only was she able to keep up, but with the determination to restore her fitness before the Grand Départ in Switzerland, she ended up finding some of her best form.

“Her shape is incredible,” says D’Hoore. “She’s really at full capacity. I would say she’s even better than in Suisse. Also her morale and everything, she’s really good. She’s here in a support role for Kim [Le Court-Pienaar], and she enjoys it so much. There’s no pressure on her. She will be there on the climbs, and that’s what she likes the most.

“In the end, I think she was very lucky. I think she had a guardian angel with her.”

Žigart agrees. On the eve of the race, she shared a long Instagram post saying she had “an angel looking out for me from above”. She’s now back on solid foods, pain free, and enjoying the carnival of the Tour – her third Grand Tour of the season.

“Now it’s six weeks, they say it’s as stable as it’s going to get, so it’s safe to race,” she says. “The body is an amazing thing.”

Somebody must have forgotten to show Riejanne Markus the script for stage two of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

Destiny had written it as follows: Lorena Wiebes wins a routine bunch sprint and takes her first victory in the yellow jersey.

That, in the end, was the closing scene, but not without Markus’s best efforts to foil it.

Peeling off the front of the breakaway with 39km to go, the Lidl-Trek rider charged solo to the finish, skirting around the shore of Lake Geneva and into the Swiss city. Her gap stayed steady at around a minute. Until, closing in towards the line, it began to fall, the seconds trickling away rather than tumbling.

Fans in their thousands tilted onto their tiptoes along the finish straight to see if she’d hold off the pack. It would have been, they thought, the perfect antidote to a foregone conclusion. But with 400m to go, Wiebes and the sprint trains barrelled over the top, and Markus was absorbed into the swell of the bunch.

The Dutchwoman's result on the day read 76th, but it didn’t tell the story of how narrow the finale was.

“I came pretty close, and I honestly didn’t expect that,” Markus said afterwards. “Of course, we wanted to be part of the game, but I knew that the sprinters really wanted to get a chance today because this was the most suitable stage for a sprint. But then I came actually pretty close, so it was actually pretty disappointing in the end.”

Stage two was, as many correctly tipped, a day made for Wiebes. She is the most dominant sprinter of her generation – perhaps of all time – who has collected 133 career wins at the age of 27. Seven of those have come at the Tour de France Femmes – a tally bettered by no one. Did Markus think she could have starved her of her latest one?

“In the last kilometres, I was not thinking about the win really,” the Lidl-Trek rider said. “I was just trying to go all-out, and be as quick as possible.

“Actually, 1km before the finish, I thought, ‘They’re still not here. When are they coming?’ Then with 500m to go, I felt like, ‘Ooo.’ Then at 400m, they came. It was really disappointing, actually, but I’m really proud of the effort.”

It was a credit to the Dutchwoman's strength that Wiebes's SD Worx-Protime team chose to chase her down with their GC leader Anna van der Breggen and former world champion Lotte Kopecky. “It was a gap I couldn’t close really easily,” Kopecky said post-race. “We rode full gas, and we didn’t come any closer.

“We know Riejanne and we know that we cannot give her two minutes. But she had a really good moment where she attacked. It always takes some time to organise ourselves. In the end it was quite close, but I think the girls did an amazing job today to close the gap.”

By way of consolation, Markus was awarded the combativity prize as the day’s most daring rider. She smiled out to the fans gathered in the road as she stood on the podium, and was greeted with the loudest cheer of the day.

“It was really nice to be on the podium,” she said, “but I really hope I’ll come closer than I did today on some of the next stages.”

The script, next time, may have Markus in a starring role.

After an emphatic victory on the opening stage, Lorena Wiebes took another win on stage two of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, as she dominated the bunch sprint to claim back-to-back wins and retain the maillot jaune as overall leader of the race.

The Dutch sprinter had to fight her way through to the front in the final few hundred metres, as she was left without a leadout, after her SD Worx-Protime team were forced to chase down a solo move from a resilient Riejanne Markus (Lidl-Trek), who was only caught inside the final kilometre.

“Our team worked really hard for it. The girls were chasing full gas in the final to bring back Riejanne Markus, so it was even more beautiful to finish it off in yellow,” Wiebes said in her interview after the stage.

“At one point we decided to put Lotte [Kopecky] in the chase, because we needed everyone,” she continued. “I also knew that it was up to me to find my own way and I found some good wheels. I could come out with around 200m to go and then I just launched my sprint.”

Once she emerged into clear air, Wiebes once again proved to be a level above the rest of the sprinters, with Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) and Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) finishing a distant second and third respectively.

When asked if she ever gets bored of winning so dominantly, Wiebes replied: “No, I think every sprint is quite exciting, because if you make a small mistake, the sprint is over and you cannot finish it off for the team. So for me, it’s exciting every time and a bit nervous sometimes to sprint.”

With some tougher climbs coming up on tomorrow’s stage, the maillot jaune could be up for grabs ahead of the time trial on stage 4. On whether she believes she can retain the jersey, Wiebes said: “I think tomorrow it will be really hard to keep it, but we will do our best.”

HOW IT HAPPENED

After a thrilling opening stage in Switzerland, the riders faced a 148km-long stage from Aigle to Geneva on stage 2 of the Tour de France Femmes, as the race began to head towards the French border along the shores of Lake Geneva.

It was a slow start to the stage, with no early breakaway forming in the opening kilometres, which allowed riders from the peloton to contest the first two categorised climbs, with Marion Bunel (Visma-Lease a Bike), Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly), Maeva Squiban (UAE Team L’IMAD) and Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Premier Tech) among those to claim points for the mountains classification.

A breakaway did eventually form with around 95km to go, with Eline Janssen (VolkerWessels), Carlotta Cipressi (Human Powered Health) and Yuliia Biriukova (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi) getting themselves up the road, before being joined by Anouska Koster (Uno-X Mobility) and Ema Comte (Cofidis) shortly afterwards.

They were never allowed more than three minutes of an advantage by the peloton, as the general classification contenders’ teams kept them on a relatively tight leash throughout the day.

Biriukova won the intermediate sprint from the breakaway with 59km to go, whilst the maillot jaune Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) claimed maximum points from the peloton behind to increase her lead in the points classification, as she continued to go about defending her maillot vert from last year’s race.

The race then began to liven up as the riders approached the Côte de Bougy-Villars (0.9km at 10.4%) a few kilometres later, as teams looked to keep their leaders well-positioned in the bunch.

It was here that the breakaway began to fragment, with Cipressi and Biriukova dropped from the head of the race, whilst Janssen managed to hold on as Comte and Koster began to attack each other on the climb, with the latter taking the maximum points at the summit.

The Côte de Mont-sur-Rolle (2.3km at 6.5%) then followed shortly afterwards with 50km to go, with the peloton quickly closing the gap to the breakaway to around a minute as they began the climb. This then triggered a move from the peloton, as Célia Gery (FDJ United-SUEZ) went on the attack to bridge across to the three riders at the head of the race.

The French rider drew Nina Berton (EF Education-Oatly) with her, before Sarah Van Dam (Visma-Lease a Bike), Sara Casasola (Fenix-Premier Tech) and Amanda Spratt (Lidl-Trek) also bridged across to the move.

Koster then outsprinted Comte once again to take the maximum points, before the chasing group then joined the leading trio over the top of the climb to form an eight-rider breakaway at the head of the race, but they only had a handful of seconds over the peloton behind.

A lack of cooperation hindered their situation further, as they began to attack each other before they were inevitably caught by the bunch.

Riejanne Markus (Lidl-Trek) then immediately counterattacked and went solo with around 40km to go. The Dutch rider then proceeded to draw out an advantage of more than a minute on the peloton over the following 15km, before the bunch realised the threat she posed and began working to reel her in.

However, Markus’ abilities as a time trial specialist made it difficult for the sprinters’ teams to close the gap and she still had half a minute of an advantage over the peloton with 5km to go.

It was all hands to the pump for SD Worx-Protime, who were receiving little to no assistance from the other sprinters’ teams and had to call upon Anna van der Breggen and Lotte Kopecky to help bring the race back together for a sprint finish for Lorena Wiebes.

Once Kopecky had finished her final turn on the front, Wiebes was isolated and had to surf the wheels amongst the leadout trains to stay well-positioned in the bunch.

As they went under the flamme rouge, Markus still had a slender advantage over the charging peloton behind, but it was ultimately not enough for her to hang on, as she was caught with around 500m to go.

The peloton then swung around the final corner and the sprint was launched. Several sprinters went on the left side of the road, opening up a pocket of space on the right, which Wiebes immediately burst through with a surge of power

From there it was essentially a foregone conclusion, as she kicked again and powered to victory, finishing four bike lengths clear of Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) in second place.

RESULTS

TOUR DE FRANCE FEMMES STAGE TWO: AIGLE > GENEVA (148KM)

1. Lorena Wiebes (Ned) SD Worx-Protime, in 03:42:08
2. Elisa Balsamo (Ita) Lidl-Trek
3. Marianne Vos (Ned) Visma-Lease a Bike
4. Shari Bossuyt (Bel) AG Insurance-Soudal
5. Letizia Paternoster (Ita) Liv AlUla Jayco
6. Josie Nelson (GBr) Picnic PostNL
7. Zoe Bäckstedt (GBr) Canyon-SRAM
8. Noemi Rüegg (Sui) EF Education-Oatly
9. Malwina Mul (Pol) Cofidis
10. Linda Riedmann (Ger) Lotto Intermarché, all at same time

GENERAL CLASSIFICATION AFTER STAGE TWO

1. Lorena Wiebes (Ned) SD Worx-Protime, in 07:10:59
2. Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mau) AG Insurance-Soudal, +14s
3. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ United-Suez, +16s
4. Noemi Rüegg (Sui) EF Education-Oatly, +20s
5. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) UAE Team L'IMAD
6. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly
7. Kasia Niewiadoma (Pol) Canyon-SRAM
8. Puck Pieterse (Ned) Fenix-Premier Tech
9. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Fra) Visma-Lease a Bike
10. Marlen Reusser (Sui) Movistar, all at same time

Ma Petite Entreprise rider Alison Avoine lived out “one of the worst days of my career” on Saturday, when she missed the time cut on stage one of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

The Frenchwoman finished the stage in Lausanne alone at the back of the race, almost 27 minutes after the winner Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime), and just one minute and 45 seconds adrift of the time cut – fixed at an extra 12% of the winner’s time.

The race communique left no room for sympathy: “The following rider finished outside of the stage’s time limit and is eliminated: Alison Avoine, Ma Petite Entreprise.”

Writing on Instagram after the stage, Avoine explained that she “cracked” but “fought until the very end”.

“Today I experienced what I think is one of the worst days of my career,” the 26-year-old wrote. “I’m sorry – sorry to myself for having been so tough on myself, sorry to my team for failing them, and sorry to my loved ones and the people who support me every day.

“It hurts a lot to write these words, especially since I’ve worked so hard this week to help my team-mates, but it didn’t happen. Sport is a human profession, and sometimes you just crack. Today, I cracked.”

Starting and finishing in Lausanne, stage one stretched 138km and counted four categorised climbs: three category-threes, and a category-four to finish.

While Avoine wasn't involved in any of the handful of crashes that marred the day, she had to work hard to tow her fallen team-mates back into the peloton, and paid the price for her efforts.

“I fought until the very end with the determination I always have. It’s hard tonight. It hurts my head and my heart, but there will be better days,” she continued.

“Thank you again to my partners, my team, and my loved ones for their trust and support.”

Avoine, who works as a neuropsychiatrist alongside her cycling career, was racing her fourth edition of the Tour de France Femmes.

Stage one brought a mixed bag of results for her team, Ma Petite Entreprise; alongside the low of Avoine’s elimination, the French ProTeam had the joy of taking the polka dot jersey thanks to breakaway rider Océane Mahé.

The Tour de France Femmes peloton now goes into Sunday’s second stage three riders down. Victims of crashes on the opening day, Laura Tomasi (Uno-X Mobility) abandoned stage one with an elbow injury and possible concussion, while Christina Schweinberger (Fenix-Premier Tech) withdrew on Sunday morning due to a broken wrist.

If anyone knows the importance of four seconds, it’s Demi Vollering. Two years ago, it was the gap that kept her from the top step at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, the time between her and the race winner Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-Sram) – the smallest winning margin in the race’s history.

Stage one of this year's edition might not prove so decisive. But two years later, on the opening day in Lausanne, the four seconds fell in her favour.

Third over the line behind the stage winner Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) and Kim Le Court-Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal), Vollering's bonus seconds earned her early bragging rights over her main GC rivals. It's a narrow advantage, inconsequential perhaps. And yet Vollering's memories from 2024 will tell her that even the most marginal lead can't be understated.

“I wanted more,” she said afterwards. “Of course, I wanted to get yellow, but in the end I got some seconds for the GC and I think the whole Tour will be like that. And I fought for the podium, that also feels good.”

Arriving back to her team paddock on the shore of Lake Geneva, Vollering headed straight for the ice bath within a white truck beside her team bus. She smiled as she chatted with her team-mates, and then again with the Dutch media, explaining that she feels “more relaxed” this year than previously.

"Last year I woke up every morning and I thought, 'Shit, another morning closer to the Tour'," she said of her preparation. "This time I woke up every morning and I was super motivated and excited."

It was against this backdrop that Vollering plotted her stage-winning bid on day one. With 1.3km to go, however, her attack was almost foiled before it happened, when she was forced to unclip her foot from her pedal to avoid a pile-up.

She then re-composed herself, shot off the front of the pack inside the final kilometre, and held her speed to finish third. “The fact I got back and still had power in the legs, I’m satisfied about that,” she said.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly, Vollering’s FDJ United-SUEZ sports director, Lars Boom, reflected on a "good day" for the team.

“Of course, you hope to do better,” he said. “But no, we did good, I think, and the team is doing well.

“Of course, you want to gain a few seconds every day. Of course, you try to win today. It didn’t work out, but you’re third, so not too bad.”

There was less fist-bumping over by the Visma-Lease a Bike bus, where, warming down on her time trial bike, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot – eighth on the stage – was so focused on her position that the world around her seemed to stand still. After a short while, the TV camera crews waiting to interview her ran out of patience and left.

To Ferrand-Prévot, who won the Tour by almost four minutes last year, four seconds may have seemed negligible. But with eight tough stages still to come, including a time trial and a summit finish on Mont Ventoux, any advantage matters.

For now, the upper hand, albeit a very small one, belongs to Vollering.

With back-to-back victories in the final two stages, Demi Vollering (FDJ United-SUEZ) has won the 2026 Tour de France Femmes, winning in the yellow jersey on the final stage around Nice after going solo on the final climb.

Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) was forced to settle for second place after losing the yellow jersey to Vollering the previous day, whilst Marlen Reusser (Movistar) was unable to maintain her third place, as she was dropped on a climb halfway through the final stage before crashing hard on the descent, which saw Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L’IMAD) take her place on the podium.

The green jersey was won by Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) after back-to-back victories for the Dutch sprinter in the opening two stages. She battled hard early in the final stage to take the points needed at the intermediate sprint to mathematically secure the jersey.

Meanwhile, Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Premier Tech) had already secured the polka dot jersey with a commanding lead heading into the final stage, and finished safely to be crowned the Queen of the Mountains of this year’s race

Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-SRAM) sealed the white jersey as the best young rider ahead of Paula Blasi (UAE Team L’IMAD) and Isabella Holmgren (Lidl-Trek), whilst UAE Team L’IMAD won the teams classification.

Tour de France Femmes 2026 Stage Nine: Nice > Nice (99km)

1. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ United-Suez, in 02:44:43
2. Paula Blasi (Esp) UAE Team L’IMAD, +1:04
3. Kasia Niewiadoma (Pol) Canyon-SRAM
4. Niamh Fisher-Black (NZl) Lidl-Trek, all at same time
5. Antonia Niedermaier (Ger) Canyon-SRAM, +1:06
6. Isabella Holmgren (Can) Lidl-Trek, +1:08
7. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) UAE Team L’IMAD, +1:04*
8. Femke de Vries (Ned) Visma-Lease a Bike, +1:57
9. Dominika Włodarczyk (Pol) UAE Team L’IMAD
10. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly, all at same time

*Given same time due to a puncture in the final 3km

General Classification

1. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ United-Suez, in 30:54:51
2. Kasia Niewiadoma (Pol) Canyon-SRAM, +1:18
3. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) UAE Team L’IMAD, +4:19
4. Antonia Niedermaier (Ger) Canyon-SRAM, +5:10
5. Paula Blasi (Esp) UAE Team L’IMAD, +6:13
6. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly, +6:41
7. Dominika Włodarczyk (Pol) UAE Team L’IMAD, +7:53
8. Isabella Holmgren (Can) Lidl-Trek, +9:12
9. Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mau) AG Insurance-Soudal, +14:04
10. Niamh Fisher-Black (NZl) Lidl-Trek, +15:14

Points Classification

1. Lorena Wiebes (Ned) SD Worx-Protime, 181pts
2. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ United-SUEZ, 152pts
3. Lotte Kopecky (Bel) SD Worx-Protime, 120pts
4. Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mau) AG Insurance-Soudal, 107pts
5. Kasia Niewiadoma (Pol) Canyon-SRAM, 103pts

Mountains Classification

1. Puck Pieterse (Ned) Fenix-Premier Tech, 55pts
2. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ United-SUEZ, 30pts
3. Kasia Niewiadoma (Pol) Canyon-SRAM, 28pts
4. Maeva Squiban (Fra) UAE Team L’IMAD, 19pts
5. Paula Blasi (Esp) UAE Team L’IMAD, 14pts

Youth Classification

1. Antonia Niedermaier (Ger) Canyon-SRAM, in 31:00:01
2. Paula Blasi (Esp) UAE Team L’IMAD, +1:03
3. Isabella Holmgren (Can) Lidl-Trek, +4:02
4. Nienke Vinke (Ned) SD Worx-Protime, +17:46
5. Célia Gery (Fra) FDJ United-SUEZ, +38:58

Teams Classification

1. UAE Team L’IMAD in 93:02:51
2. Lidl-Trek, +48:11
3. FDJ United-SUEZ, +48:26

Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) won the opening stage of the 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift with an explosive sprint, finishing ahead of Kim Le Court-Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal) in second and Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) in third.

The Dutchwoman managed to stay in contention, right towards the front, and among the GC riders on the final climb to the finish, the Côte Saint-François, which averaged 4.6% for 2.6km.

EF Education’s Noemi Rüegg was well-placed in the final sprint thanks to a lead-out from her teammate Cédrine Kerbaol, but had no answer to Wiebes’s acceleration, and faded behind Le Court-Pienaar, Vollering and Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Premier Tech) to finish fifth.

“I almost cannot believe it,” said Wiebes at the finish when asked how she felt about winning the stage and earning the yellow jersey.

“The team, SD Worx-Protime, worked super-hard today. Anna [van der Breggen] came to the front with 1km to go, and then Demi attacked, and I needed to follow. It was a long sprint, but I’m super happy."

There was a tense fight among both the GC contenders and stage hunters on the final climb. AG Insurance-Soudal controlled the peloton for most of the slower slopes, before their leader Le Court attacked 1.5km from the finish.

Another move came from Célia Gery (FDJ United-Suez) a few hundred metres later, then her teammate Vollering around a corner with 800m to go, but Wiebes managed to hang on.

"I expected that there would be some attacks," Wiebes said. "I felt good, and thought, 'There is 1km to go, I need to hold on, I cannot drop back anymore. I lost [my way] a bit, as I think EF started on the right-hand side. I found my way, I started a bit early, but I knew I needed to go now."

Wiebes led a group of ten that finished on the same time, with Paula Blasi (UAE Team L'IMAD), Van der Breggen, and Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-Sram) all crossing the line in the trailing group eight seconds down.

“I’m really happy with the support from our team,” continued Wiebes. “That also gave my extra energy, and also the support from the staff. They fully believed in me, even after I had some doubts. I’m super-grateful for this.”

HOW IT HAPPENED

Warm weather and blue skies greeted the riders in Lausanne for the start of the fifth edition of the Tour de France Femmes.

There was plenty of interest to get into the day’s break, with Idoia Eraso (Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi) and Maud Rijnbeek (VolkerWessels) the first riders to get a gap. They were soon joined by Nikola Nosková (Cofidis) and Océane Mahé (Ma Petite Entreprise) to form the day’s four-woman break.

Both Alison Jackson (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93) and Kiara Lylyk (Mayenne Monbana My Pie) belatedly attempted to join them, but failed in their efforts, the latter being brought back into the peloton with 79km to go and the former 73km to go.

The break worked well together to build a big lead that, at its highest, reached six minutes. They remained clear of the race for both the first two climbs of the day, the category-three Côte de Châbles and Côte de Villars-le-Comte, where Mahé claimed maximum points to seal the polka-dot jersey for stage two.

It was on this latter climb that the pace increased in the peloton, with riders being shelled out of the back, most notably Franziska Koch, and an attack from Riejanne Markus (Lidl-Trek). There were splits towards the front of the peloton as they approached the summit, with a group of about fifteen riders reaching the top together with a lead of a few seconds, but everything came back together on the descent.

Amanda Spratt (Lidl-Trek) attacked out of the peloton on the descent, but the break still remained at the front of the race by the day’s third climb, the category-three Côte de Vulliens. Here, Nosková attacked at the top to take the Queen of the Mountains points, and pressed on to lead the race solo.

Nosková spent the next 15km on her own, before being caught by Eraso, Rijnbeek and Spratt 17km from the finish. They worked well together but were swallowed up by the peloton with just 6km to go.

There were multiple crashes throughout the day, including one for Marlen Reusser, who went down with her Movistar team-mate Arlenis Sierra at the front of the peloton on a decent 22km from the finish. They both managed to bridge back up 17km from the finish.

RESULTS

TOUR DE FRANCE FEMMES AVEC ZWIFT, STAGE ONE: LAUSANNE > LAUSANNE (138KM)

1. Lorena Wiebes (Ned) SD Worx-Protime, in 03:29:11
2. Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mau) AG Insurance-Soudal
3. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ United-Suez
4. Puck Pieterse (Ned) Fenix-Premier Tech
5. Noemi Rüegg (Sui) EF Education-Oatly
6. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) UAE Team L'IMAD
7. Kasia Niewiadoma (Pol) Canyon-Sram
8. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Fra) Visma-Lease a Bike
9. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly
10. Marlen Reusser (Sui) Movistar, all same time

GENERAL CLASSIFICATION AFTER STAGE ONE

1. Lorena Wiebes (Ned) SD Worx-Protime, in 03:29:11
2. Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mau) AG Insurance - Soudal, +4s
3. Demi Vollering (Ned) FDJ United-Suez, +6s
4. Puck Pieterse (Ned) Fenix-Premier Tech, +10s
5. Noemi Rüegg (Sui) EF Education-Oatly
6. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita) UAE Team L'IMAD
7. Kasia Niewiadoma (Pol) Canyon-Sram
8. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Fra) Visma-Lease a Bike
9. Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra) EF Education-Oatly
10. Marlen Reusser (Sui) Movistar, all at same time

Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift race director Marion Rousse has said “several options” are being considered for a possible reroute of Friday’s seventh stage, which is due to finish on Mont Ventoux.

Ahead of this year's edition, the climb's local prefecture released a statement asking the race organiser, ASO, to plan for an alternative route due to the risk of wildfires in the region.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly in Lausanne on Saturday, Rousse said no changes are in place yet, but a decision will be made next Tuesday 4 August.

“We’re considering several options,” she said. “What’s certain is that we’re still going to go up Mont Ventoux – the riders are still going to climb it. However, we’re of course at the disposal of the prefecture who will take the decision, and will help with access if necessary.”

Asked for more information about the options, Rousse said: “That will be unveiled on 4 August. But it’s something we’ve already considered and will be put in place to help everyone.”

Rousse's comments came after the Vaucluse prefecture, which counts Mont Ventoux within its remit, released the following statement on Friday: “At a time when forest areas are at a peak risk of fire, the prefecture has asked the organisers of the Tour to consider an alternative route. Following a fire risk assessment on Tuesday 4 August, an alternative route will be implemented should the wildfire risk be considered extreme.”

Three stages of the men’s Tour de France were impacted last month as a result of extreme weather; stage nine was shortened by 30km due to a red weather warning, stage 21 was shortened by 44km due to wildfires, and on stage three, fans were urged not to go to the finish because of wildfires in the Pyrenees.

It is uncertain how the Queen stage of the Tour de France Femmes may be affected. When stages were shortened at the men’s race, kilometres were removed from the start, with the finales left as planned.

“We are in constant touch with the prefecture and we will adapt, just as the men’s Tour de France did,” Rousse said during a media meeting on Friday.

“The Tour de France is just a bike race. What’s happening in everyday life outside of it is more important.”

FDJ United-Suez, the number one ranked Women's WorldTour team, have partnered with Red Bull, it was announced on Saturday, on the eve of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

The team of former Tour champion Demi Vollering will debut their new Red Bull helmets on stage one, with the partnership representing a first for Red Bull within women's cycling. Other riders are sponsored directly by Red Bull, like Canyon-SRAM's Zoe Bäckstedt, but this is the first time a whole team has been sponsored like this. However, the team name will remain the same for now.

The prospect of the partnership between FDJ United-Suez and energy drink brand Red Bull was reported by Cyclingnews back in March, but it has taken until now for the deal to be revealed. The brand joins as major partner and official energy drink partner. Red Bull separately sponsor a men's WorldTour team, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, for whom Remco Evenepoel rides.

"We are delighted to welcome Red Bull with us, and this partnership is the pinnacle of all the structuring and development efforts we have tirelessly invested in over the past years," FDJ United-Suez's manager, Stephen Delcourt, said on Saturday. "What brings FDJ United-Suez and Red Bull together goes beyond the pursuit of performance alone. We share the determination to challenge established models and conventions, to innovate, and to imagine new ways of advancing and telling the story of our sport.

"Seeing this partnership come to life at the Tour de France Femmes is a truly special moment for our team, France-based with International ambitions. It marks a new step in our development and perfectly reflects our ambition: to keep progressing on the road while daring to push boundaries beyond it."

Asked about her new helmet by Cycling Weekly in the mix zone ahead of stage one, Vollering said: "It's cool, no? I really like it, it's a special helmet. It's a new sponsorship for the team, a partnership I have to say, because it's really a partnership. We'll work together. It's an exciting thing."

The press release announcing the deal reads: "Unveiled for the first time during the opening stage of the 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, this partnership marks a new milestone in FDJ United-Suez's growth trajectory. The team will benefit from Red Bull's expertise and performance ecosystem, particularly through the Red Bull Athlete Performance Center.

"This long-term collaboration will enable FDJ United-Suez to further enhance its working methods and continue its commitment to innovation and elite performance in support of its athletes."

The Tour de France Femmes begins on Saturday with a 138km stage which starts and finishes in the Swiss city of Lausanne.

If the form guide were the only thing to go by, this Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift should be a procession for Demi Vollering.

The Dutchwoman enters the race as the Giro d’Italia Women champion, having taken 10 victories from just 20 race days this season, and with the confidence of being the UCI’s number-one-ranked female rider by a landslide; her 6,705 points are almost 2,000 greater than second-placed Paula Blasi (UAE Team L’IMAD), and more than three times those of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike), the defending Tour champion, down in the ranking depths of 20th.

Foregone conclusion, then? Not quite. As history tells us, and has cruelly taught Vollering, fortunes can change quickly inside the pressure cooker of the Tour. After winning the race in 2023, the FDJ United-SUEZ rider has twice finished runner-up – by an agonising four seconds in 2024, and a crushing three minutes and 42 seconds last year – in editions almost derailed by crashes.

Her goal now is to regain the top step. But as she spoke in a pre-race press conference on Friday afternoon, she made clear she’s not fixated on it.

“I think for now, what has changed the most is that I come quite calm into this Tour de France,” Vollering said. “I don’t have the feeling I need to save my season, for example, on this Tour, because I have won already so many beautiful races.

“I’ve really enjoyed this whole season with the whole team. We’ve done such a great beginning of the season already. I think for that, this season is already very successful.”

Vollering opened 2026 with two stage wins and an overall victory at the three-day Setmana Valenciana. She then steamrolled through the Spring Classics, winning Omloop Nieuwsblad, the Tour of Flanders, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and affirming herself as the season’s strongest one-day racer.

As if her stage racing credentials needed proving, she went on to complete the Grand Tour treble in June at the Giro, taking two stages, including the closing one, on which she overhauled a 49-second deficit in the GC to win by half a minute.

“We showed at the Giro that everything can change on the last day,” she said. “It’s of course always good to start the Tour in a good way, and be at the front instead of behind – that’s always the goal – but still I believe, this Tour, every day’s so hard. Towards the end there are still so many opportunities; even the last day is still going to be super hard.”

For that reason, her mentality for the race is straightforward: “You should never give up or be unmotivated,” she said. “It’s going to be a fight until the very, very end.”

Which riders will remain in that final scrap will become clear as the race goes on. Ferrand-Prévot, though winless since she won the yellow jersey last year, has proven her ability again and again to set a target and achieve it. The start list also counts 2024’s Tour winner Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-Sram), the Vuelta Femenina champion Blasi, her former Giro champion UAE Team L’IMAD team-mate Elisa Longo Borghini, and two-time Grand Tour podium finisher Marlen Reusser (Movistar).

The form guide may be in Vollering’s favour, but she’s not short of challengers. How does she carry the expectation on her? “I always like to think pressure is a privilege,” she said. “It comes for a reason, and it’s a good thing to have.

“Of course, it’s also a very big motivation for myself to bring the yellow jersey to a French team. I love beautiful stories, and I’d love to add this beautiful story to my list, of course.”

The nine-day Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift begins this Saturday 1 August in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Watch Tour de France Femmes 2026 live streams from anywhere in the world as the prestigious stage race returns for its fifth edition across the first nine days of August.

The race continues on Friday, August 7, with the queen stage taking place today. Riders begin in La Voulte-sur-Rhône before tackling 3,500 m of climbing, concluding atop Mont Ventoux in the Tour's only summit finish.

This year's route looks harder than ever, with a total distance of 1,175km and 18,275m of climbing, so whoever is wearing the yellow jersey after Stage 9 will have truly earned their achievement. Defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot is looking to become the first person to win back-to-back titles, but Giro d'Italia winner Demi Vollering will be among those trying to take her crown.

Widely considered the most prestigious event on the UCI Women's World Tour calendar, the Tour de France Femmes is back for another year.

The race begins in Lausanne on Saturday, August 1, with Stage 2 ending in Geneva the following day. The race heads into France from Stage 4, beginning with an individual time trial and featuring a summit finish up Mont Ventoux on Stage 7, before the finale in Nice on Sunday, August 9.

There are plenty of stars to watch out for alongside Ferrand-Prevot and Vollering, including 2024 winner Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney, Puck Pieterse and Cedrine Kerbaol.

Below, Cycling Weekly has gathered all the key information on broadcasters and live streams so you can watch the Tour de France Femmes wherever you are.

Quick guide to watching the Tour de France Femmes

• UK: TNT Sports / HBO Max (£30.99/mon)
• US: Peacock ($10.99/mon)
• Canada: Flobikes ($49.99/mon)
• Australia: SBS (Free)
• Free live streams: SBS (Australia), France TV (France), RAI (Italy), RTBF (Belgium), RTVE (Spain), NOS (Netherlands)
• Anywhere: Watch your local stream from anywhere with NordVPN

Can I watch the Tour de France Femmes for free?

Fans in Australia, France, Italy, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands can watch the Tour de France Femmes for free.

In Australia, the race is being shown on TV and online by SBS, the country's public service broadcaster. Streaming is available at SBS On Demand, with linear viewing available on SBS Viceland.

In France itself, the Tour de France will also be shown live via host broadcaster France Télévisions, with the action primarily on France 2 and online via France.TV.

You can also watch for free in Italy through RAI Play online, in Belgium on RTL and VRT, in Spain on RTVE, and in the Netherlands on NOS.

Coverage is geo-restricted, so if you're not in any of these countries right now, and these channels are your usual port of call, you'll need a VPN to get your usual coverage while abroad – more on that below.

How to watch the Tour de France Femmes while abroad

Most streaming platforms have geo-restrictions these days, which means they only work in certain countries. But being locked out of the races is a thing of the past thanks to a VPN.

A Virtual Private Network is a piece of internet security software that can alter your device's location, so you can unblock your usual streaming services, even when you're abroad.

► Should I use a VPN to watch cycling? Explaining the benefits, costs, considerations, and best VPNs for streaming the races

How to watch the Tour de France Femmes in the UK

In the UK, the race will be shown live across TNT Sports and HBO Max.

Live streaming is available on HBO Max, with linear viewing on TNT Sports. Plans start at £25.99 per month, with rolling subscriptions available at £30.99.

Unfortunately, Channel 5 will not be showing highlights of the women's Tour de France, as they did for the men's edition. This will change in 2027, when the channel is set to return with highlights coverage of the race.

How to watch the Tour de France Femmes in the US and Canada

For US viewers, this year's coverage of the Tour de France Femmes is going to be on NBC and Peacock

Both outlets come from the same NBCUniversal stable, with NBC available on many cable packages and Peacock – which is set to show all nine stages live – on a pay per month basis. It'll cost you $10.99/month.

In Canada, Flobikes is in charge of broadcasting the Tour de France. Subscriptions cost CA$49.99 a month, with big savings for long-term plans. The Flobikes TV app is available on Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast and Apple TV, as well as on iOS and Android.

How to watch Tour de France Femmes in Australia

In Australia, you can watch every stage of the Tour de France Femmes for free via SBS On Demand.

All you will need is an account with a valid Australian postcode (e.g. 2034).

What to expect at the Tour de France Femmes

The Tour de France Femmes 2026 will mark the fifth edition of the prestigious stage race, which has rapidly established itself as the centrepiece of the UCI Women's WorldTour calendar. This year's route covers 1,175km, beginning in Lausanne and finishing in Nice, with nine consecutive days of racing and no rest days to test the peloton from start to finish.

After an opening weekend around the shores of Lake Geneva, with Stage 1 and Stage 2 both starting and finishing in Lausanne and Geneva respectively, the race begins to intensify on Stage 3 with a demanding finish in Poligny. The stage features the Category One Col de la Faucille (11.4km at 6.3%) among a series of climbs that will provide the first major test of the general classification contenders.

Stage 4 sees the race cross into France with a 21km individual time trial from Gevrey-Chambertin to Dijon, the first time the discipline has featured on the Tour for two years. The battle for the yellow jersey then moves into the mountains, with Stage 5 opening the climbing phase before the iconic summit finish on Mont Ventoux arrives on Stage 7 at an altitude of 1,910m.

The penultimate stage sees the riders tackle a gradual ascent to the Col de Toutes Aures before a technical descent into Nice, setting up a decisive final day on Sunday, August 9. Stage 9 covers 99.2km and features four ascents of the Col d'Eze before the race concludes on the Mediterranean coast.

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot made history in 2025 by becoming the first French rider to win the Tour de France Femmes, and the Team Visma | Lease a Bike star will return in 2026 aiming to become the first rider to claim multiple victories in the race.

Standing in her way will be a strong field of contenders, including FDJ United-SUEZ rider Demi Vollering, winner of the 2023 edition, and 2024 champion Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney of Canyon-SRAM, both of whom will be looking to reclaim the yellow jersey.

2026 Tour de France Femmes stage start and finish times

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Marion Rousse has worn almost every hat in the cycling world. Born in northern France, she learnt to ride at the Roubaix Velodrome and went on to become national road champion in 2012. Three years later, however, at age 24 and earning no income from the sport – she was working part-time at a town hall to make ends meet – she retired from racing to pursue a career in media.

Today, Rousse is one of the most recognisable and influential figures in the sport. She’s the voice of cycling on France’s national broadcaster, France Télévisions, and directs the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, having spearheaded the race's highly anticipated revival since taking the reins in 2021.

“I was always sure of one thing with this race,” she said after the first edition in 2022. “Creating a women’s Tour de France wasn’t a gift that we were giving to women’s cycling. They simply deserve it and you see the proof each day.”

Ahead of this year's race, we sat down with Rousse for a Q&A.

How did you get into cycling?

I started when I was six years old. I come from a cycling family: my dad was a high-level amateur cyclist and my cousins, Laurent and David Lefèvre, were pros. As a little girl, I had a lot of energy, and I was bored of cheering on my dad from the side of the road. So I told my parents I wanted to ride myself. Initially, they weren’t on board because they said it was really hard for boys and would be even harder for a girl. They also said I was too young. My mum ended up taking me secretly to sign up.

You went on to turn pro. What has been the proudest moment of your career?

I had some amazing moments in my career, even if it was in a different era of women’s cycling, when we weren’t paid. Winning the French national road title [in 2012] in my home region in front of my family was nice. For me, sport is the best school for life: it teaches you about discipline and pushing your limits. My time as a pro helped me get where I am today in my career.

Why did you decide to retire from racing at 24?

Because I wasn’t paid. After I became French champion, Eurosport asked me if I wanted to try commentating on bike races. I did that for two years, but I got the feeling I wasn’t giving 100% in either of the two roles. At that time, I didn’t see the future of women’s cycling evolving so quickly, and since I wasn’t paid, I figured commentary gave me a good opportunity to stay in the industry I loved while also receiving a salary.

In 2021, you became the director of the Tour de France Femmes. How did that come about?

I’d heard on the grapevine that they were bringing back a women’s Tour de France. Then, one day, [men’s race director] Christian Prudhomme called me and said, “We’re going to start the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. We need someone to organise it, and we want it to be you. We don’t have any other names. Take some time to think about it.”

Of course, when someone gives you an opportunity like that, you don’t have any other choice than to accept. I knew that the evolution of women’s cycling would come through the Tour de France; it was the only race that could get us recognised by the masses, bring in big audiences, and attract sponsors. I told Christian, “OK, let’s do it.”

Did you have any doubts about taking on the role?

Not really. Obviously it’s a huge role, but I knew that with ASO behind it, it would be run by experts. I also already had experience that I knew would help me in the role: as a former high-level sportsperson who knew and had lived through the past struggle of women’s cycling, I was probably more able to make the right decisions at the right moments than a man who had never been part of women’s cycling. I also had my media hat, and in the first few years, the race needed someone who was known to the public. It was all quite natural.

You also have your family life with Julian Alaphilippe, son Nino – and of course your dog Eliott. How do you find juggling everything?

It’s a unique lifestyle, and Nino’s arrival shook up a lot of things – the arrival of a baby for anyone is a big thing. We had to find a balance. Being able to count on my parents helps me a lot with fitting in all my work trips. I’m very lucky to have a little boy, five years old now, who is happy and understands the situation. And Eliott’s great – he’s so sociable, I don’t even know if he knows I’m his owner. He just adores everyone.

Has the rapid growth of the Tour de France Femmes surprised you?

The fact it’s been this fast, yes. I was confident, because I trusted ASO and I knew that if they put the resources in to make it work, it would be a success. Last year, Christian Prudhomme was with me at the race – we did a few stages in the car together – and he said, “Marion, I no longer see the difference [between the men’s and women’s Tours] in the number of people at the side of the roads.” Our big hope was that people would no longer see a men’s Tour and a women’s Tour, but rather the Tour de France.

Do you feel pressure to grow the race every year?

No, but we put pressure on ourselves to come up with an exciting route and meet the high standards of the Tour de France. It needs to be prestigious. The hardest gamble for us was making women’s cycling a household topic for people, even though they didn’t really get to see women’s racing on TV.

In the first edition, I went to speak to the wider public, and they struggled to name a single rider. Now I’m really happy because everyone knows the riders; you see signs at the side of the road, and journalists talk about end-of-season transfers. We’ve really overcome an obstacle and now people don’t watch because it’s men’s or women’s cycling, they watch for the performances.

How do you respond to people who say the race should be three weeks long?

You’ve really got to put the race in its context: barely five years before [the race began], there were hardly any riders in the peloton who were paid. That’s very recent. The Tour de France Femmes is there to accompany the evolution of women’s cycling, and we can’t evolve quicker than women’s cycling itself. If we do, it’ll implode.

There was a Tour de France Femmes before us, the Grand Boucle Féminine, and it disappeared. It would be a catastrophe if, in eight years, we have to say, “It doesn’t work, we grew too quickly, and it’s all imploded.” Yes, it’s evolving quickly, but we’re not at the same stature as the men’s peloton yet. We also shouldn’t put any barriers in our way, and one day there might be more stages, but we won’t go from nine days to 21 overnight. It will need to be done little by little.

The rider union The Cyclists’ Alliance stated in May that women’s cycling is in danger and “built on fragile foundations”. What’s your sense of the health of the sport?

Bad. We talk a lot about women’s cycling, but it’s the same outlook on the men’s side, too. At the top of the pyramid, you have the men’s and women’s Tours, which are very solid and attract the best riders because we have the resources to organise at this level. But it’s becoming difficult to organise bike races. At many levels, races are made possible by volunteers, and everything is expensive. The bottom of the pyramid is really fragile.

What have been the defining moments of the first four editions of the Tour de France Femmes for you?

There have been many. We’ve been very lucky. We’ve had four different winners and that’s great. One of my favourite Tour de France Femmes memories was giving the start on the Champs-Élysées [in 2022]. I popped out the roof of the car, turned around, saw the peloton with the road behind them, and knew it was a big moment for women’s cycling.

Then there were the four seconds that separated Kasia Niewiadoma and Demi Vollering at the summit of Alpe d’Huez [in 2024]. That was a crazy scenario. And Pauline [Ferrand-Prévot]’s victory last year, the first Frenchwoman to win the yellow jersey. The number of people who came out to cheer her on at the roadside, the TV audiences we had on France Télévisions – we peaked at eight million viewers, the second highest that year, including the men’s race [the first was the Paris stage in Montmartre] – it’s incredible. Pauline and I started around the same time and I know her well, so it was a nice quirk of fate.

What does it mean to have a French winner? Have you noticed more home interest in the race?

Oh yes. We’ve waited so long to see a French man or woman take the yellow jersey again, and now it’s been done. It brought together an enormous amount of people. Pauline already had a big fan base, with lots of people behind her, especially after [winning mountain bike gold at] the Paris Olympics. For the development of women’s cycling, it was a steal to have her return to the road.

Do you think Ferrand-Prévot will be the first person to win the race twice?

I hope so for her. People have been questioning Pauline’s form a lot this year, saying she’s not as strong as last year, but I think she’s on the same trajectory – I’m not too worried for her. She has this ability to fix an objective in the year, and arrive 100% ready. She’ll be very strong. That said, it’s true that Vollering has taken a step up. I think the level has improved since last year. You’ve also got riders like [Vuelta Femenina winner] Paula Blasi, who will be interesting to follow, and Marlen Reusser, with the time trial. I think it will be a bit closer than last year, but I still believe in Pauline.

Quickfire round

What was your first bike? It was a black Alan road bike with downtube shifters.

Who was your childhood cycling hero? When I was really young, I loved Erik Zabel. Then when I grew up a bit I was a Tom Boonen fan.

What’s your favourite place to ride? Now, with my lower level, I like going to Calpe [in Spain]. It’s a bit hilly, but you don’t have to climb mountains. The south of France and the Alps are also great.

Your favourite Monument? Paris-Roubaix.

Your favourite type of stage: mountains, sprint or breakaway? Not sprints, especially when I commentate on them for seven hours and nothing happens! High-mountain stages are always great. But as a commentator, you’re always less disappointed with the Classics-y stages, where there’s a fight from the beginning, compared to the high mountains. With those, you know you’re going to have a good afternoon in front of the TV.

Your favourite mountain in France? I love Mont Ventoux. I’ve climbed it five times.

Your favourite sport after cycling? I really like following biathlon and athletics. But especially biathlon, because it’s in the winter and there’s no cycling to watch.

Who’s the next star of women’s cycling? Célia Gery.

What do you do to relax? I go through real on-off periods, so when I’m at home, I’m a real mother hen. I love going for walks or to restaurants with my son.

This feature originally appeared in Cycling Weekly magazine on 30 July 2026. Subscribe now and never miss an issue.

Mountain recons, time trial tuning, and the knowledge of home roads are all part of the meticulous preparation Pauline Ferrand-Prévot hopes will carry her to a second Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift title next week.

The Visma-Lease a Bike rider will start the race this Saturday in Lausanne as the yellow jersey favourite, having won last year on debut by more than three and a half minutes ahead of Demi Vollering (FDJ United-SUEZ).

Addressing the media in a press conference on Wednesday, the Frenchwoman explained she has been plotting her title defence ever since the route was announced last October. She now feels ready, “physically and mentally”, to take on her big goal of the season.

“I was speaking with my trainer just before and I think everything is like we expected it to be,” she said.

“My goal since the beginning is to be able to be 100% for the Tour de France. I never really had in mind to win all the races [I competed in this season]. I know that I needed specific preparation to be able to win races. I just picked my battles and I chose the Tour de France as a battle.”

Last year, Ferrand-Prévot sealed the yellow jersey with a crushing solo win on stage eight’s summit finish on the Col de la Madeleine, where she drew out more than three minutes over Vollering. The race visits another iconic Tour mountain this edition in Mont Ventoux – on what's sure to be a decisive stage seven – and the Frenchwoman has done her best to familiarise herself with its slopes.

“I’ve climbed Mont Ventoux quite a lot of times in the past, but also since I’ve known it will be in the Tour de France,” she said. “As I’ve said many times, I really like to know where I’m putting my wheels, so I went there quite a few times to do some recons.

“It’s a hard climb. It’s different to the Madeleine, and I think the wind will have more of an impact. It’s a climb that, after Chalet Reynard [14.5km into the 21km], you also need quite some power because it’s more like a flattish part.

“Madeleine was really steep and hard and didn’t really have parts where you could recover. This one is a bit different. I think maybe we will have more team tactics for Ventoux than we could see last year for Madeleine.”

One stage Ferrand-Prévot won’t be able to rely on her team is day four’s 21km individual time trial into Dijon. The Visma-Lease a Bike rider only returned to the road from her mountain bike career last year, and hasn’t raced alone against the clock since 2021, when she placed fifth at the French National Championships.

Did she feel like she was starting again from zero in preparing for the discipline? “I had to start from minus 10,” she laughed, but reassured she’s now gotten herself up to speed. “Since we knew there would be a TT in the Tour, we had a good plan; first of all to get back on the TT bike, then we did the positioning on the TT bike, and then we did more testing, wind tunnel testing, aerosuit testing, and also race simulation,” she said.

“I can say I’ve spent a lot of time on my TT bike. I really like it. For me, it’s kind of a challenge, and I really like this kind of challenge. I took it very seriously, and I think I did my homework quite well. I’m happy with how I feel on the TT bike.”

Though Ferrand-Prévot is winless this year – her main yellow jersey rival, Vollering, by contrast, has won 10 times – she said she feels relaxed thanks to the smooth preparation she has had.

Her recons of the stages have also led her to forecast that there will be “suspense until the end” in the GC. If she’s right, she’ll have a trump card to play on the final day: stage nine takes place barely a 20-minute drive from her home in Monaco, and includes four ascents of Nice’s Col d’Èze, her local training climb.

“It’s so special, because the last stage, I do this climb I would say almost every day,” she said. “I just love this feeling of being able to come back to this climb after the Tour and say, ‘I raced there and I gave it my best.’

“For all these reasons, I feel happy and at the moment relaxed. Let’s see in a few days, maybe I will be crying and unhappy, but at the moment I’m in a good way.”

The great engineer Alexander Graham Bell once said: “Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” Ferrand-Prévot, of course, isn’t trying to invent the telephone, but she knows the rule still applies to bike racing, and her goal of claiming the yellow jersey again.

If she achieves it, she’ll be the first person in the race’s five-year history to win twice. It’s a feat to which she’d like to lay claim, and yet with three sleeps until the Grand Départ, she’s not getting hung up on it.

“Because I won last year, now I say, ‘Ok, it will not change my life to win it again. Even if I’m super motivated, and if I try really hard to do it again, there will be a tomorrow',” she said.

“This makes me feel really relaxed because I will just give my best and we will see. There’s nothing more I can do.”

The nine-day Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift begins this Saturday 1 August in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Less than a week after the conclusion of the men's Tour de France, another yellow jersey will be at play at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, the women's WorldTour's flagship event.

Now in its fifth edition, this year's race counts a highly competitive field, with defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike) and past winners Demi Vollering (FDJ United-SUEZ) and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-Sram) already confirmed to compete.

The race begins on 1 August in Lausanne, Switzerland, and will take place over nine stages, including an individual time trial, a summit finish on Mont Ventoux and a final day in Nice.

All 14 Women's WorldTour teams will be present, as well as seven ProTeams, invited by the organiser, ASO.

Each team is allowed to bring seven riders, giving a maximum start list of 147 riders. This will be the smallest field at the race since its first edition in 2022, when there were 144 starters – 24 teams of six.

The reduction in field this year is due to there being one fewer team on the Women's WorldTour; Ceratizit and Roland left the top tier at the end of 2025, while only EF Education-Oatly stepped up.

Below is the full, official start list for this year's Tour de France Femmes.

Tour de France Femmes 2026 confirmed start list

AG Insurance-Soudal
Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mus)
Mireia Benito (Esp)
Letizia Borghesi (Ita)
Shari Bossuyt (Bel)
Lore De Schepper (Bel)
Justine Ghekiere (Bel)
Urška Žigart (Slo)

Canyon-Sram
Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Pol)
Zoe Bäckstedt (GBr)
Chiara Consonni (Ita)
Rosa Klöser (Ger)
Antonia Niedermaier (Ger)
Soraya Paladin (Ita)
Agnieszka Skalniak-Sójka (Pol)

Cofidis
Julie Bego (Fra)
Ema Comte (Fra)
Amalie Dideriksen (Den)
Victorie Guilman (Fra)
Hannah Ludwig (Ger)
Malwina Mul (Pol)
Nikola Nosková (Cze)

EF Education-Oatly
Nina Berton (Lux)
Henrietta Christie (NZl)
Kristen Faulkner (USA)
Cédrine Kerbaol (Fra)
Noemi Rüegg (Sui)
Alice Towers (GBr)
Magdeleine Vallieres (Can)

FDJ United-SUEZ
Demi Vollering (Ned)
Juliette Berthet (Fra)
Célia Gery (Fra)
Franziska Koch (Ger)
Amber Kraak (Ned)
Marie Le Net (Fra)
Évita Muzic (Fra)

Fenix-Premier Tech
Puck Pieterse (Ned)
Sara Casasola (Ita)
Lotte Claes (Bel)
Millie Couzens (GBr)
Yara Kastelijn (Ned)
Charlotte Kool (Ned)
Christina Schweinberger (Aut)

Human Powered Health
Nina Buijsman (Ned)
Carlotta Cipressi (Ita)
Thalita De Jong (Ned)
Barbara Malcotti (Ita)
Marit Raaijmakers (Ned)
Titia Ryo (Fra)
Lily Williams (USA)

Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi
Naia Amondarain (Esp)
Yuliia Biriukova (Ukr)
Idoia Eraso (Esp)
Arianna Fidanza (Ita)
Usoa Ostolaza (Esp)
Paula Patiño (Col)
Debora Silvestri (Ita)

Lidl-Trek
Loes Adegeest (Ned)
Elisa Balsamo (Ita)
Lucinda Brand (Ned)
Niamh Fisher-Black (NZl)
Isabella Holmgren (Can)
Riejanne Markus (Ned)
Amanda Spratt (Aus)

Liv AlUla Jayco
Mackenzie Coupland (Aus)
Nadia Gontova (Can)
Jeanne Korevaar (Ned)
Letizia Paternoster (Ita)
Ruby Roseman-Gannon (Aus)
Silke Smulders (Ned)
Monica Trinca Colonel (Ita)

Lotto Intermarché
Dina Boels (Bel)
Elisabeth Ebras (Est)
Romina Hinojosa (Mex)
Marieke Meert (Bel)
Linda Riedmann (Ger)
Sandrine Tas (Bel)
Sterre Vervloet (Bel)

Ma Petite Entreprise
Noémie Abgrall (Fra)
Laura Asencio (Fra)
Alison Avoine (Fra)
Morgane Coston (Fra)
Clémence Latimier (Fra)
Célia Le Mouël (Fra)
Océane Mahé (Fra)

Mayenne Monbana My Pie
Marine Allione (Fra)
Alice Coutinho (Fra)
Kiara Lylyk (Can)
Fiona Mangan (Irl)
Karolina Perekitko (Pol)
Natalie Quinn (USA)
Constance Valentin (Fra)

Movistar
Marlen Reusser (Sui)
Francesca Barale (Ita)
Liane Lippert (Ger)
Tota Magalhães (Bra)
Sara Martín (Esp)
Paula Ostiz (Esp)
Arlenis Sierra (Cub)

Picnic PostNL
Robyn Clay (GBr)
Eleonora Ciabocco (Ita)
Lucie Fityus (Aus)
Pfeiffer Georgi (GBr)
Mia Griffin (Irl)
Gaia Masetti (Ita)
Josie Nelson (GBr)

SD Worx-Protime
Anna van der Breggen (Ned)
Mischa Bredewold (Ned)
Valentina Cavallar (Aut)
Elena Cecchini (Ita)
Lotte Kopecky (Bel)
Nienke Vinke (Ned)
Lorena Wiebes (Ned)

St Michel-Preference Home-Auber93
Heidi Franz (USA)
Alicia González (Esp)
India Grangier (Fra)
Alison Jackson (Can)
Émilie Morier (Fra)
Solène Muller (Fra)
Caroline Wreszin (USA)

Uno-X Mobility
Katrine Aalerud (Nor)
Teuntje Beekhuis (Ned)
Marte Berg Edseth (Nor)
Sigrid Ytterhus Haugset (Nor)
Anouska Koster (Ned)
Laura Tomasi (Ita)
Alessia Vigilia (Ita)

UAE Team L'IMAD
Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita)
Paula Blasi (Esp)
Brodie Chapman (Aus)
Mavi García (Esp)
Silvia Persico (Ita)
Maeva Squiban (Fra)
Dominika Włodarczyk (Pol)

Visma-Lease a Bike
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Fra)
Marion Bunel (Fra)
Femke de Vries (Ned)
Daniek Hengeveld (Ned)
Lieke Nooijen (Ned)
Sarah Van Dam (Can)
Marianne Vos (Ned)

VolkerWessels
Anneke Dijkstra (Ned)
Malou Eisen (Ned)
Eline Jansen (Ned)
Laura Molenaar (Ned)
Maud Rijnbeek (Ned)
Quinty Schoens (Ned)
Sophie von Berswordt (Ned)

Demi Vollering's FDJ United-SUEZ team have announced the roster which will support the Dutch woman at the Tour de France Femmes avec Ziwft next week.

Vollering won the Tour when riding with SD Worx in 2023, and has finished second in each of the two editions since and both and the team will be desperate for her to win in Nice on August 9th.

Vollering will look to Juliette Berthet and Évits Muzic as her chief support riders for the hilly and mountainous days, while the increasingly versatile Paris-Roubaix winner, Franziska Koch will provide a steely backbone for the team.

Recently crowned French champion, 20-year-old Célia Gery is fast improving and adaptable enough to help out on all terrains too, while Amber Kraak and Marie Le Net form the rest of the seven woman squad and are both certain to be seen on the front controlling.

The team has been around for 20 years but was little more than an also ran for many of those years. However, since Muzic won the team's first World Tour race at the 2020 Giro Rosa, they have been on a tear and are now the best team in the women's peloton.

However, they are yet to win their home race, the Tour de France Femmes, something manager Stephen Delcourt told Cycling Weekly before the first edition of the modern race in 2022 was their chief ambition. As the best rider in the world, Vollering is a huge part of making that ambition a reality and Delcourt has built the team around the 29-year-old Dutch woman.

"It's really hard to choose the roster because we have a really, really amazing team, and we have only one goal, which is the yellow," Delcourt told Cyclingnews earlier this month.

"For that, we want the best riders around Demi, and not just the seven best riders, because especially with this Tour de France, there are a lot of stages where we need to be really careful if we want to put pressure on the others."

The team already has 19 wins this season, with Vollering bagging 10 of those, including two stages and the GC at the Giro d'Italia last month, and she is certain to be brimming with confidence on the start line in Lausanne next week. However, if she's to win she will need to overcome last year's victor, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot who will lead a strong Visma-Lease a Bike team. Ferrand-Prévot hasn't had the best of seasons and hasn't raced since early May, though she is notoriously brilliant at peaking for goals, as she did last year.

Other rivals include Movistar's time trial world champion, Marlen Reusser, who is sure to challenge, especially with the inclusion of a 21km TT on stage 4, and a resurgent Anna van der Breggen leading the SD Worx-Protime team.

The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift starts in Lausanne on August 1st with two stages in Switzerland, moving into south-east France for the seven remaining stagesrest of the race. A summit finish on Mont Ventoux is the queen stage of the event, which concludes in Nice on August 9th.

Zoe Bäckstedt will be heading to her first Tour de France Femmes next month after being selected to help support Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney’s bid for a second Tour title.

The decision to take the Welshwoman comes after she has emerged as one of Canyon-SRAM’s strongest riders in recent months. Bäckstedt claimed dual British road race and time trial titles in June.

Then on Sunday she won her second Baloise Ladies Tour title making it back-to-back wins in the Belgian race.

The Welshwoman’s performance against the watch was what secured her the win. She took the win in the 3.9km prologue and although she relinquished the leaders jersey briefly on stage two she stormed to victory in the 8km time trial on stage 3a.

On her Tour selection the 21 year-old said: “It's exciting, it's really cool. I’ve dreamt a little bit about being selected for the Tour in the last years.

She added: “Time trialling is the one thing that suits me the most so it’s really exciting to have a TT in there.

“Since the course was released last year, knowing that it had a time trial, there was maybe a little bit of a shift to focus on the Tour – to really do some prep and dial everything in so I could hopefully be selected. Now, I'm on the list to go and it's super exciting.

“I think the time trial is going to be my favourite stage of the whole race, and it's where I want to shine.

Bäckstedt, turned pro in 2023 straight from the junior ranks, has only raced one grand tour before, the Vuelta Femenina in 2024. She said: “I genuinely don't know how it's going to be. At La Vuelta, I was not in my best form and I fell sick halfway through, so there’ll be a lot of new things at the Tour this year.”

Although the time trial will be her primary focus she said she’s also hopeful of putting in a strong performance on one of the race’s tough road stage. She said: “I've looked at the route and there are a few other stages that I think could be okay for me if I can make it to the final, but the standout one is obviously the time trial.

“When I look back at the end of it, hopefully I’ve learned a lot. I think it's going to be one of those races where every day is a learning day.

“I would obviously love to go for a result in the time trial, but I can't put too big an expectation on it because it’s my first Tour and my first time against actually all of the big riders. Obviously, Marlen [Reusser] was in Tour de Suisse, so that was a good first experience, but having a good time trial, maybe one good road stage and doing a lot of team-work will be satisfying.”

Reflecting on her own goals, team leader Niewiadoma-Phinney said: "Coming into this year's Tour, I would definitely say that I'm richer in experience and have more knowledge of the Tour in general, which definitely gives me a little advantage. Because of that, I feel a bit calmer, and I also know what it takes to prepare perfectly for the race.

"This year is just a new opportunity. You're only as good as your last race.

"It's great to have a Tour victory on my palmares, but I definitely come in with a fresh mind and body ready to go after new experiences and, of course, the victory."

Aside from GC hopeful Niewiadoma-Phinney, Canyon-SRAM have a team that includes several other riders that could hope for a result.

Antonia Niedermaier was runner up at the Giro d’Italia Women in May and will be a potential GC threat alongside the team’s Polish leader.

Chiara Consonni can lay claim to her chances in sprint stages too.

They’ll be ably supported by Rosa Klöser, Soraya Paladin and Agnieszka Skalniak-Sójka.