If the form guide were the only thing to go by, this Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift should be a procession for Demi Vollering.
The Dutchwoman enters the race as the Giro d’Italia Women champion, having taken 10 victories from just 20 race days this season, and with the confidence of being the UCI’s number-one-ranked female rider by a landslide; her 6,705 points are almost 2,000 greater than second-placed Paula Blasi (UAE Team L’IMAD), and more than three times those of Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike), the defending Tour champion, down in the ranking depths of 20th.
Foregone conclusion, then? Not quite. As history tells us, and has cruelly taught Vollering, fortunes can change quickly inside the pressure cooker of the Tour. After winning the race in 2023, the FDJ United-SUEZ rider has twice finished runner-up – by an agonising four seconds in 2024, and a crushing three minutes and 42 seconds last year – in editions almost derailed by crashes.
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Her goal now is to regain the top step. But as she spoke in a pre-race press conference on Friday afternoon, she made clear she’s not fixated on it.
“I think for now, what has changed the most is that I come quite calm into this Tour de France,” Vollering said. “I don’t have the feeling I need to save my season, for example, on this Tour, because I have won already so many beautiful races.
“I’ve really enjoyed this whole season with the whole team. We’ve done such a great beginning of the season already. I think for that, this season is already very successful.”
Vollering opened 2026 with two stage wins and an overall victory at the three-day Setmana Valenciana. She then steamrolled through the Spring Classics, winning Omloop Nieuwsblad, the Tour of Flanders, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and affirming herself as the season’s strongest one-day racer.
As if her stage racing credentials needed proving, she went on to complete the Grand Tour treble in June at the Giro, taking two stages, including the closing one, on which she overhauled a 49-second deficit in the GC to win by half a minute.
“We showed at the Giro that everything can change on the last day,” she said. “It’s of course always good to start the Tour in a good way, and be at the front instead of behind – that’s always the goal – but still I believe, this Tour, every day’s so hard. Towards the end there are still so many opportunities; even the last day is still going to be super hard.”
For that reason, her mentality for the race is straightforward: “You should never give up or be unmotivated,” she said. “It’s going to be a fight until the very, very end.”
Which riders will remain in that final scrap will become clear as the race goes on. Ferrand-Prévot, though winless since she won the yellow jersey last year, has proven her ability again and again to set a target and achieve it. The start list also counts 2024’s Tour winner Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-Sram), the Vuelta Femenina champion Blasi, her former Giro champion UAE Team L’IMAD team-mate Elisa Longo Borghini, and two-time Grand Tour podium finisher Marlen Reusser (Movistar).
The form guide may be in Vollering’s favour, but she’s not short of challengers. How does she carry the expectation on her? “I always like to think pressure is a privilege,” she said. “It comes for a reason, and it’s a good thing to have.
“Of course, it’s also a very big motivation for myself to bring the yellow jersey to a French team. I love beautiful stories, and I’d love to add this beautiful story to my list, of course.”
The nine-day Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift begins this Saturday 1 August in Lausanne, Switzerland.
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