Vollering wins the Tour de France Femmes 2026 — and completes a rare double
On the Col d'Èze, Demi Vollering rode her way to a second overall Tour de France Femmes title, after a week full of twists around Mont Ventoux and a dramatic crash for yellow jersey holder Marlen Reusser. A profile of a season she made entirely her own.
The hardest edition yet, and Niewiadoma's masterstroke on the Ventoux
The 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift ran from 1 to 9 August, nine stages and 1,174.7 kilometres from Lausanne to Nice. It was billed beforehand as the hardest edition in the race's young history, with Mont Ventoux on the menu for the first time. Lorena Wiebes made the opening days her own with two sprint wins, before Marlen Reusser won the time trial to Dijon and took over yellow. In the Beaujolais, Demi Vollering struck for the first time, sparking the three-way battle that would shape the rest of the week.
That battle produced its first big moment on stage 7, the climb to the summit of Mont Ventoux. Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney rode clear solo and turned a 1'05" deficit into a 15-second lead — stage win and yellow jersey in one move. Exactly the kind of stage the bald giant of Provence was built for.
Vollering's second title, and Reusser's crash on the final day
Vollering wasn't done. A day after the Ventoux she hit back in Nice, taking an eight-second lead into the final stage — the smallest gap ever heading into the last day. On that closing stage around Nice, everything clicked: she soloed clear on the Col d'Èze for her third stage win of the week, and her second overall title after 2023.
Niewiadoma-Phinney finished second at 1'18", Elisa Longo Borghini third at 4'29". Marlen Reusser, still on the podium until then, crashed on a descent and slid all the way back to fourteenth — a cruel way to end an otherwise strong Tour.
A rare Grand Tour double
The win in Nice meant more than just a second Tour title. A few months earlier Vollering had already claimed the 2026 Giro d'Italia Women, by thirty seconds over Antonia Niedermaier. Winning two Grand Tours in a single season is the kind of double very few riders ever manage.
The rest of the jerseys stayed in familiar hands too: green went to Lorena Wiebes, the polka-dot jersey to Puck Pieterse and white to that same Antonia Niedermaier, runner-up to Vollering at the Giro. UAE Team L'IMAD won the team classification, and Niewiadoma-Phinney took the combativity award — fitting, after her solo on the Ventoux. Curious which of these riders matches your own racing character? Take the quiz to find out which Tour de France Femmes rider you are.
The other big story of the season: Paula Blasi
Vollering wasn't the only rider to make 2026 memorable. From 3 to 9 May, La Vuelta Femenina went to 21-year-old Spaniard Paula Blasi, who took her first Grand Tour win on the mythical Alto de l'Angliru — included in the women's race for the first time. Two young generations, two very different stories, in the same season that pushed women's cycling another step forward.
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