Demi Vollering won the penultimate stage of the 2026 Tour de France Femmes to take the yellow jersey from Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney.
The Dutchwoman made multiple attacks from 6.7 kilometers out on Saturday, sparking a response from Niewiadoma-Phinney and Elisa Longo Borghini, before going solo with 5.5km left.
Stage eight was the longest day of racing in this year’s event, with a 175km route taking the peloton from Sisteron to Nice.
It was an unlikely day for general classification (GC) action due to the average descent into the finish, starting 80km into the day. There were multiple short climbs, however, within the final 17km, in which Vollering distanced her rivals.
Niewiadoma-Phinney finished 17 seconds down on the FDJ United-Suez rider in third, on the same time as Longo Borghini. This took the Pole to eight seconds behind Vollering overall, with Marlen Reusser distanced to 1:12 off top spot.
Meanwhile, Célia Gery again pulled Vollering into position before the climbs — but was heavily criticised at the finish by Niewiadoma-Phinney, who said she had purposefully blocked her.
The Athletic analyses the day’s action.
Block-gate
At the finish line, Niewiadoma-Phinney was fuming.
The Canyon-SRAM rider told broadcasters Gery “on purpose just blocked me to the barriers, where I had to stop pedalling”.
“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,” Niewiadoma-Phinney added. “Honestly, I lost all the respect for them for that.”
The Pole confronted 20-year-old Gery, as filmed by Dutch outlet Wielerflits, asking if it was “part of the plan”.
Back at the FDJ United-Suez team bus, however, things were calmer.
“I cannot see it very well on TV, but I spoke with Célia about it and she didn’t block her; she just went back on the wheel of Demi,” directeur sportif Lars Boom said. “This was always the plan.
“She needed to be in the bottom of the climb when she turns left in the wheel of Demi, because if you do an attack and you have a rider in between, it’s the perfect situation if you can go as fast as Demi can.”
Boom’s Canyon-SRAM counterpart Rolf Aldag also had not seen the incident, but suggested something had happened to leave Niewiadoma-Phinney behind.
“If she’s on Demi’s wheel, she gets over the top with Demi and then nothing happens and the GC stays the same. Why that happened, why she wasn’t on the wheel, I don’t know,” he said.
The official race report made no mention of the matter, or any potential sanction.
How will the FDJ United-Suez/Canyon-SRAM rivalry unfold?
The Gery incident was just the latest development in what has been a scintillating rivalry between these two teams.
Vollering has shown a desire to “just race” and be aggressive since the start of the Tour, riding from the front and attacking — sometimes seemingly for the sake of putting pressure on.
Niewiadoma-Phinney dealt Vollering a huge blow on Mont Ventoux on Friday to take the yellow jersey from more than a minute behind Reusser in the GC. It was no fluke — the Pole is an incredibly strong rider, and having two previous Tour winners battle it out has been box office.
“Some people say to me, ‘Yeah, but yesterday Demi gambled, and that’s why Kasia (won)’, but that’s nonsense,” Aldag said on Saturday. “Yesterday, Kasia was the best, without a doubt, and you don’t just win with one minute 20 because you get lucky or somebody gambles.
“It’s because you know on Mont Ventoux you’re the best, and she was yesterday. And fair play, Demi was really good today, so we have to accept that.”
The FDJ United-Suez response on Saturday flipped the classification completely once more, setting up an incredibly tight final day of racing in and around Nice tomorrow.
With four ascents of a 7.7km climb at 5.9 per cent packed into a short space, eight seconds can disappear in a flash.
There are shades of 2024, where Vollering won on Alpe d’Huez in the final stage but lost the race to Niewiadoma-Phinney by a margin of just four seconds.
Will Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney be celebrating winning a second Tour de France Femmes tomorrow? (Alex Broadway/Getty Images)
Reusser, too, is 1:12 behind — a similar gap to that of Niewiadoma-Phinney before Ventoux — which, as Friday’s stage taught us, can be whittled away at.
Not one rider in the top three will be comfortable heading into the final stage, and that is a thrilling prospect.
How Ventoux changed stage eight from a breakaway to a GC battle
From the race maps, Saturday’s penultimate stage seemed set to be one for the breakaway, who at worst may have had to hold off a bunch sprint.
The day sandwiched between the first big mountain stage — an ascent which had never been seen before on the Women’s Tour — and a relentless-looking finale would not have normally enticed the GC teams.
The breakaway formed early, but had only two members. UAE Team L’Imad’s Maëva Squiban was one of them, a strong rider who won two stages in last year’s Tour, and they built a gap of more than five minutes.
“We want to win the race, we want to fight,” FDJ United-Suez boss Stephen Delcourt said before the day’s racing. “In every single meter from Sisteron to Nice we will think to take the yellow.” To close the 15-second gap, there would be no waiting around for the final, tougher, stage tomorrow.
Stephen Delcourt said his FDJ United-Suez team wanted ‘to fight’ (Alex Martin/AFP via Getty Images)
Delcourt said the team needed to “analyse every meter” to find a way to make up some time, eventually settling on the small ascents as the race entered Nice.
He said he called “all the people that I know on that” and “searched all the information about the last steep part” to plan it, as the slope itself was not on the route.
Once the strategy was formed, Vollering did not need to be told twice.
It forced Niewiadoma-Phinney to follow, too, building up fatigue after her long-range solo effort on Friday.
After a relentless, unpredictable eight days of racing, tomorrow’s final stage will be a test of resolve and who has anything left in the tank.
What’s in store on Sunday?
It all comes down to this. The winner of the 2026 Tour de France Femmes will be decided on the streets of Nice, with a gruelling, criterium-like circuit.
The riders will scale Col d’Eze four times in the stage’s 99km, with a gap of around 5km on the flat in between. One false move and those time gaps are suddenly looking very frail indeed.
Who’s wearing the jerseys after stage 8?
| Contest |
Rider |
Team |
Time/points |
Gap |
|
Individual
|
Demi Vollering
|
FDJ United Suez
|
28hr 10min 18sec
|
8sec
|
|
Points
|
Lorena Wiebes
|
SD Worx-Protime
|
164
|
32 points
|
|
Climber
|
Puck Pieterse
|
Fenix-Premier Tech
|
55
|
34 points
|
|
Youth
|
Antonia Niedermaier
|
Canyon-SRAM
|
28hr 14min 12sec
|
1min 11sec
|
Stage eight top five
- Demi Vollering, FDJ United-Suez, 4 hours two minutes and 39 seconds
- Elisa Longo Borghini, UAE Team-L’imad, +17 seconds
- Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, Canyon-SRAM, same time
- Kim le Court, AG Insurance-Soudal, +38 seconds
- Lotte Kopecky, SD Worx–Protime, same time.
Overall standings
- Demi Vollering, FDJ United-Suez, 28 hours 10 minutes and 18 seconds
- Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, Canyon-SRAM, +eight seconds
- Marlen Reusser, Movistar, +one minute and 12 seconds
- Elisa Longo Borghini, UAE Team-L’imad, +three minutes and five seconds
- Antonia Niedermaier, Canyon-SRAM, +three minutes and 54 seconds.
