Vollering conquers Nice: a Tour de France Femmes won amid fury, tears and a roadside truce
Demi Vollering won her second Tour de France Femmes on the streets of Nice on Sunday 9 August 2026, sealing overall victory with a solo attack on the Col d'Èze that dropped her great rival Kasia Niewiadoma on the final stage. Riding for FDJ United-Suez, Vollering covered the nine-stage race in 30 hours 54 minutes 51 seconds and extended her overall lead to 1 minute 18 seconds over the runner-up Niewiadoma, with Elisa Longo Borghini third. (AP News)
The win was her fourth stage victory of this year's race — she had already won stage 5 — and it came on a day when the overall title was still genuinely uncertain until the narrow climb of the Chemin de Vinaigrier in suburban Nice. Vollering had to do it the hard way: after stage 5 she sat 12 seconds behind the Swiss rider Marlen Reusser in the general classification (the overall standings, decided on total time across all stages). (Tour de France Femmes)
Reusser, who began the final stage in third place, crashed at speed on the second descent of the Col d'Èze. She remounted in tears, her podium hopes gone, but finished the stage. (The Guardian)
What gave the day its edge was a feud that spilled into the open the afternoon before. On Saturday, Niewiadoma — the Polish rider who won the Giro d'Italia Women earlier in 2026 and took a Tour de France Femmes stage atop Mont Ventoux on Friday — had an uncharacteristic outburst at the finish line directed at Vollering's 20-year-old teammate Célia Gery. The criticism triggered a wave of nasty messages aimed at the young rider. Vollering said afterwards she was angry about what Gery had been through. (The Guardian)
The two principals cleared the air while riding together during the early kilometres of Sunday's final stage — a conversation conducted side by side in the saddle before the racing turned vicious again on the climbs above Nice. (The Guardian)
For Niewiadoma, a former florist who races under the married name Niewiadoma-Phinney in the official classifications, it was a fifth top-three finish in the Tour de France Femmes — a record of consistency that still lacks the yellow jersey. Stage 7 had produced the closest one-two gap in the race's history, and the tension carried all the way to the Mediterranean. (Tour de France Femmes)
Vollering's season already included a solo win at Liège–Bastogne–Liège in April and a third place at the Amstel Gold Race. Her partnership with FDJ United-Suez, extended in late May, is paying off at the biggest races on the calendar. (FDJ United-Suez)
The weekend also closed the book on the men's Tour. Tadej Pogačar won his fifth title, equalling the all-time record, with a total time of 73 hours 56 minutes 26 seconds — 6 minutes 26 seconds ahead of Remco Evenepoel and 9 minutes 42 seconds ahead of Isaac Del Toro in third. His stage-six win over the Col du Tourmalet effectively ended the race as a contest. Pogačar confirmed he will ride the Vuelta a España, starting in Monaco on 22 August, and will target a sixth Tour win when the 2027 race begins in Edinburgh on 2 July. (The Guardian)
Whether Jonas Vingegaard remains Pogačar's chief rival is an open question after a Tour where the Dane never featured in the fight.
