All that flatness should mean that the race will be close until those final two stages, which are both summit finishes, with the mighty Alpe d’Huez comprising the last 13.8 km (at 8.1%) of the race. The Alpe d’Huez replaces last year’s Col du Tourmalet as the decisive obstacle of the race. The Tourmalet was climbed on that race’s penultimate stage, which was won by SD Worx-Protime’s Demi Vollering, by 1:58 over Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Canyon/SRAM Racing).
Coming into that stage, Vollering had been seventh in the GC, trailing teammate Lotte Kopecky by 1:07 and Niewiadoma by 12 seconds. But her climbing superiority turned the race on its head, and an excellent second place in the final-stage ITT made her a dominant winner of the TdFF, by 3:03 over both Kopecky and Niewiadoma. There’s no reason to believe that she can’t win again this year.
The 27-year-old Dutchwoman comes into the TdFF after riding in the Paris Olympics ITT and road race, where she finished fifth and 34th, respectively. That last result should not be taken as an indication of her form, as she rode in support of Dutch teammate Lorena Wiebes, who finished a distant 11th behind surprise winner Kristen Faulkner (EF Education-Cannondale).
Riding in the Olympics forced Vollering to revise her usual training schedule. “I did already my altitude camp pretty close to the Olympics. So I hope I can bring my form to there but, of course, it’s tricky,” Vollering told Cyclingnews. “Normally, like last week, you would have like a big training week still. Now you haven’t done so much because you want also to be fresh here. We will see if I can bring this form to the Tour de France.”
In a way, the TdFF is a version of this year’s men’s Tour, which had a lot of difficult climbs, especially in the final week. So Vollering echoed what many male riders had said ahead of their Tour. “This year is super, super hard, especially the last two days,” she said. “It’s a really hard course. Never have we seen something like this in women’s cycling, so I’m really curious to see what happens there.”
As are we all. She will have a strong support team that includes European champion Mischa Bredewold, Blanka Vas, and Niamh Fisher-Black, with Wiebes hoping to add to her collection of three TdFF stage wins. But Kopecky is going for gold on the track in Paris and will not be on the squad.
The 29-year-old Niewiadoma should again be her main challenger, as she seems to have reached another level this year. She had an excellent Classics season, winning La Flèche Wallonne Féminine, finishing second in the Tour of Flanders, and fourth in the Strade Bianche Donne. However, illness forced her to abandon the Vuelta España Femenina by Carrefour.es, which was won by Vollering.
She has since finished fourth in the Tour de Suisse Women (2:24 behind Vollering), seventh in the second-tier Internationale LOTTO Thüringen Ladies Tour, and eighth in the Olympics road race, so there is a question mark about her form.
Not so for Lidl-Trek’s Elisa Longo Borghini, who won the Giro d’Italia Women, by 21 seconds ahead of Kopecky, and finished eighth and ninth in the Olympics ITT and road race, respectively. But Vollering beat her by 2:00 in the Vuelta, and nothing in Longo Borghini’s recent results suggests that her form has improved sufficiently to overcome that gap.
Finally, Marianne Vos (Visma–Lease a Bike) has had a terrific year, winning the Dwars door Vlaanderen, the Amstel Gold Race, two stages in the Vuelta, the race’s points classification, and the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya Femenina, and finishing second in the Olympics road race. That’s a season any rider, male or female, would happily boast about, and to accomplish that at the age of 37 is simply remarkable.
No one in the peloton has more grit and courage than she does, and it would be wonderful to see her step on the TdFF podium. But though she has won 255 races in her career, including three road race world championships, 32 Giro d’Italia stages, and three Giro GCs, her last Giro GC win came in 2014. She did win the TdFF Škoda Green Jersey in 2022, but there is no reason to believe that she can stay with Vollering on the Alpe d’Huez.
The peloton this year includes two first-time TdFF riders with intriguing credentials, Olympics road race winner Faulkner and Olympics MTB cross-country gold medalist Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, a teammate of Vos at Visma–Lease a Bike. They both have some Grand Tour experience, with Faulkner having finished 11th at the 2022 Giro and 12th at this year’s Vuelta. But it seems more likely that the 31-year-old American will go for stage wins than for the GC – though her road race gold medal may have given her wings.
Ferrand-Prévot finished second to Vos in the 2014 Giro and sixth in the 2015 edition, but she hasn’t ridden in a stage race since 2018 and is probably in the race to test herself and get some legs for future Grand Tours.
Other long-shot winners include Juliette Labous (dsm-firmenich), fifth last year, and Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ-Suez), eighth in 2023. But this is very clearly Vollering’s race to lose – and she won’t.
