Tour de France Femmes: Wiebes strikes again as Vollering admits post-crash anxieties

The Guardian

a day ago

Lorena Wiebes secured her second stage win in the 2025 Tour de France Femmes on the Avenue John Kennedy in Poitiers, after again fending off her Dutch compatriot Marianne Vos in an uphill sprint.
Wiebes, who also won the Italian classic Milan-San Remo and the the points classification in the Giro d'Italia, described 2025 as her 'best season to date'. She has also won five Giro stages between from 2021-2025.
'I have tried to have more of a free mindset, like I had in the Giro,' Wiebes, of Team SD Worx-Protime, said. 'This season has already been really good, even if I hadn't won in the Tour de France. It doesn't feel like we have a lot of pressure from the team.'
While Wiebes celebrated another sprint success, the pre-race favourite Demi Vollering was just happy to get through the day after a heavy crash close to the finish of stage three almost ended her race.
Vollering, winner of the 2023 Tour de France Femmes, finished the stage in the main group, a feat which had looked unlikely before the start in Saumur, when she winced her way through a pre-race warm-up and was visibly in pain.
'It was a big relief to feel good and that I was able to ride and to keep my head up,' she said.
'That's the biggest relief. From now on we will see, day by day. I was a bit anxious for the final because it was kind of similar to yesterday, so you feel tension. A crash like that takes its toll on you. Again, no time loss, and now I think the shock is over.'
Vollering admitted she had ridden at the front of the peloton 'mostly to stay safe … It's better to spend energy in the front of the peloton than be behind. My team did a very good job with keeping me in front of the bunch. When I was a bit anxious they were always next to me'.
The Dutch professional is the most high-value rider in the women's peloton and her €1m transfer to the French team FDJ-Suez was built around her winning this year's Tour.
However, some rival teams were dismissive of comments by the FDJ-Suez team manager, Stephen Delcourt, about a lack of respect shown towards Vollering by others in the peloton, in the aftermath of her crash.
'What he's saying is ridiculous,' Jos van Emden, the team director at Visma-Lease a bike, told Dutch media. 'Apparently he wants a peloton of eight riders, with Demi in it, to ride in a gilded cage. He's simply been influenced by Demi, by Demi's posturing.'
This was Vollering's second high‑speed crash in the Tour, following her very similar fall in the race last year, six kilometres from the finish of stage four to Amnéville, while wearing the yellow jersey.
'When I was on the ground I had some throwback of last year,' she said, 'but luckily this time it was in the five-kilometre rule [meaning she did not lose any time].'
However, she still blames her rivals for not honouring the tradition of waiting for the race leader when they are down, and her former teammates at SD Worx for racing ahead and abandoning her to her fate.
This time, though, with Vollering's committed FDJ-Suez team around her, things were different. But it will still be a tall order for her to be fully recovered from what she described as a 'hard impact' for Wednesday's longest stage of the race, from Chasseneuil-du-Poitou Futuroscope to Guéret, which includes three categorised climbs in the final 35km.