After claiming an expected victory in Stage 4’s individual time trial, world time trial champion Marlen Reusser (Movistar) arrived at Stage 5 in yellow to face the first real climbing test of the 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. While Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) eventually won the three-up battle at the line, Reusser left Belleville-en-Beaujolais not just still in yellow, but looking like a genuine contender to wear it all the way to Nice.
On a stage where former Tour winners Vollering and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM) repeatedly attacked one another, Reusser never looked rattled.
Instead, the Swiss rider raced with patience.
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While her two biggest rivals traded accelerations in an attempt to crack each other, Reusser measured her efforts, stayed glued to the decisive moves and, in a move that could prove invaluable later in the week, even sprinted for bonus seconds at the final Queen of the Mountain. It was clever racing in a Tour that in 2024 came down to a measly four seconds between Vollering and Niewiadoma-Phinney.
By the finish in Belleville-en-Beaujolais, Reusser had not only matched the race’s two most recent champions on the climbs but extended her overall lead, ending the day 12 seconds ahead of Vollering in the General Classification and 1:17 ahead of Niewiadoma-Phinney.
“I’m happy. I hoped for this,” Reusser said in the post-race press conference. “I really felt good the last days, and I also was thinking that this is possible, but always, you don’t know before really.”
If there was one blemish on an otherwise near-perfect day, it came in the final few hundred metres. In the finishing straight, Niewiadoma jumped early. Vollering and Reusser initially looked at one another, baiting the other to go. It was Vollering who closed the gap to Niewiadoma-Phinney, putting Reusser in an advantageous position.
“Kasia went, then Demi went behind her, and I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s perfect’,” Reusser said.
But as the three riders came back together before the sprint, Reusser briefly touched her brakes, losing the momentum she needed to contest the stage win.
“My momentum was gone. I was asleep. I don’t know what I did,” she lamented. “I’m really annoyed with myself. This is a bit sad. It’s a tour stage win. I don’t say that I would have won, but I just did the opposite of winning.”
Still, Reusser was quick to put her disappointment into perspective.
“I should be—and I am—super happy about the day and that I’m in yellow still.”
Any frustrations aside, Reusser applauded the aggression of both of her rivals.
“I think Demi was brave. She kept trying. You need courage to do that.”
Of Niewiadoma-Phinney’s attack, she added: “She really took it in the hands. I think she had a good shot there.”
Vollering, who was teammates with Reusser at SD Worx for three seasons between 2021 and 2023, returned the respect.
Asked whether the Movistar rider could go on to win the Tour de France Femmes, the Dutchwoman answered without hesitation: “Yeah, for sure. For her it looks very bright now.”
But Vollering pointed out that both she and Niewiadoma-Phinney have already won the Tour, while Reusser is still chasing the biggest victory of her career.
“Marlen is the one who never managed to win a Tour yet, so she has to work for it as well.”
But she also acknowledged just how formidable her former teammate is.
“I’m sure it will be a hard battle because she’s not a rider who you can beat easily because she’s very strong,” Vollering said.”But, of course, I will try everything to do that.”
Can Reusser hang in the Alps?
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Stage 5 answered one of the biggest questions surrounding Reusser’s Tour ambitions: could the world time trial champion climb with recent Tour winners Vollering, Niewiadoma-Phinney and Ferrand-Prévot?
On Wednesday’s undulating stage, the answer was a definite yes.
Ferrand-Prévot, however, may have seen her GC ambitions all but disappear. The Visma-Lease a Bike rider was dropped on the day’s final climb and conceded 2:35 to the leading trio, leaving her almost five minutes behind Reusser in the general classification.
Reusser was reluctant to rule the Frenchwoman out completely, but admitted the gap would be difficult to claw back.
“Five minutes is… I mean, you never say never, but to get five minutes back is hard,” she said. “I wouldn’t wish for me to have to go for five minutes now somewhere.”
That “somewhere” will come quickly.
Thursday’s hilly Stage 6 offers little respite before the race reaches its biggest test: Friday’s summit finish atop the legendary Mont Ventoux.
Reusser shared that she visited Ventoux ahead of the Tour, and it was the descent, not the climb, that left the biggest impression.
“I was almost crying, so afraid I was, because there were gusts,” she said.
Despite that, Reusser believes the mountain itself may actually suit her better than Stage 5’s relentless succession of shorter climbs.
“If I could choose a hard day, I would choose more the Ventoux than today,” she stated.
Still, the Swiss rider remains characteristically measured.
She insisted Wednesday’s performance hadn’t suddenly made her more confident. Instead, she sees every mountain stage as another unknown, where even the strongest riders can have an unexpectedly good, or unexpectedly bad, day.
“You go into a race and you don’t know yourself how you’re going to feel that day,” she said. “You have the same questions yourself.”
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