VIDEO: Demi Vollering Crashes Hours Before TV Broadcast Begins at Tour de France Femmes

Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift favorite Demi Vollering was caught up in an early crash on Monday’s tricky transition stage.

The 2023 champion hit the ground in an incident that unfolded hours before the international television broadcast began.

Video posted by the Tour de France Femmes showed the FDJ United-Suez leader tangled up among several bikes against a concrete curb near a light post. There was no immediate update from team officials.

Others involved included Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Premier Tech) and world champion Magdeleine Vallieres (EF Education-Oatly). There appear to be no major injuries for any of the involved riders.

It was not immediately clear what caused the pileup or how heavily Vollering hit the ground, but the Dutch star quickly remounted and regained contact with the bunch in the key transition stage that carries the peloton into France after two stages in Switzerland.

The incident appeared far less serious than Vollering’s nasty crash during the 2025 Tour de France Femmes, when she crashed heavily inside the final four kilometers of stage 3, suffering multiple bruises to her knee, back, and glutes.

She also crashed heavily in the 2024 edition and barely missed a spill during Saturday’s opening stage this weekend.

Monday’s fall marks the first wobble in an otherwise near-perfect start to Vollering’s 2026 race.

She began the stage third overall, just 16 seconds off the yellow jersey, and could move up Monday.

Race leader Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) was not expected to survive the day’s early climbs, while second-placed Kim Le Court-Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal) started only two seconds ahead of Vollering.

Crash happened hours before TV coverage

The incident occurred hours before live television coverage was scheduled to begin at 15:45 CET.

Many have criticized the lack of start-to-finish live broadcasts at the Tour de France Femmes, now in its fifth edition.

Some digital platforms are broadcasting the full stages live, but most standard cable or free-to-air terrestrial television do not entirely broadcast the race start-to-finish every day.

The first opening climbs in Monday’s 156.5km transition stage from Geneva to Poligny, including the category 1 Col de la Faucille and two other major climbs, were contested before broadcasts went live.

Vollering was also spotting wearing a protective face mask at the start of Wednesday’s stage, Wielerflits reported.

That’s not uncommon for riders to take every precaution in the Tour. In the men’s race last month, Jonas Vingegaard took to wearing a face mask before he eventually crashed out.