{"id":1867441,"date":"2026-04-05T10:01:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T07:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1867441"},"modified":"2026-04-05T10:01:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T07:01:05","slug":"vollering-vanquishes-all-in-womens-tour-of-flanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1867441","title":{"rendered":"Vollering Vanquishes All in Women\u2019s Tour of Flanders"},"content":{"rendered":"
Demi Vollering was a class above her rivals in the women\u2019s Tour of Flanders on Saturday, dropping a breakaway of very strong riders on the Oude Kwaremont and riding the final 19km alone.<\/p>\n
\n
The FDJ-United Suez rider blew the doors off Tour de France Femmes winner Pauline Ferrand Pr\u00e9vot (Visma-Lease a Bike), Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Premier Tech), defending champion Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) and others, riding them off her wheel and then putting in a stomping solo ride to the finish.<\/p>\n
Ferrand Pr\u00e9vot and Pieterse joined forces in chasing but clearly didn\u2019t have the same oomph as Vollering, who sat low, long and aero on her bike and powered the pedals around to reach the line well clear.<\/p>\n
Pieterse lead out the sprint for second but had nothing left when Ferrand Pr\u00e9vot came past. They were 42 seconds behind while Kopecky won the sprint for fourth just ahead of Zoe B\u00e4ckstedt (Canyon-SRAM-Zondacrypto), a further 22 seconds adrift.<\/p>\n
\n
ADVERTISEMENT<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cIt is crazy,\u201d Vollering said of her emotions at the win. \u201cI lost my words a bit. It was super hard, I just only thought I need to go as fast as possible and then the suffering is finally over because it was painful.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said that she mentally rehearsed her winning move multiple times beforehand.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have dreamed that moment already so many times last night,\u201d she smiled. \u201cI knew that the Kwaremont is the longest effort so that most suits me, and also the most in the end so that everyone will feel the fatigue already.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew that I just had to push without looking behind and that is what I did. I just pushed full gas until I finally turned off the cobbles. Then I realised, f*ck, I am alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was, she had enough strength to drive on to the line alone, and she took the third monument win of her career.<\/p>\n
\n
ADVERTISEMENT<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018The strongest woman won today\u2019<\/h2>\nLotte Kopecky (center) outprinted Zoe Backstedt and Karlijn Swinkels to place fourth on Saturday (Photo: Dario Belingheri\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
What was a 164km race was illuminated early on by an eight rider breakaway. One of the pre-race favorites, Marlen Reusser (Movistar Team) forced a group clear on the Molenberg with about 70km to go, being joined by Vollering, B\u00e4ckstedt, Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek), Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime), Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) and others, but things came back together. Reusser and Kim Le Court (AG Insurance Soudal) were caught up in a crash before the Koppenberg, with that climb seeing Vollering\u2019s teammate Franzi Koch hammer the pace and temporarily reduced the lead group to a handful of riders.<\/p>\n
She also turned the screw on the Oude Kruisberg, with all these efforts helping soften up the bunch before Vollering\u2019s race-winning surge on the Oude Kwaremont.<\/p>\n
\n
ADVERTISEMENT<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Pieterse was stronger than Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot on the climbs but the duo came back together with 12km to go and fended off a five-woman chase group behind which was led home by Kopecky.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have to admit that the strongest woman won today,\u201d the former world champion said. \u201cA super strong FDJ team we saw. I think we managed well until Oude Kwaremont and then I had no answer to this attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hoped we could come back for a podium place too but unfortunately we didn\u2019t come any closer to Puck and Pauline so it was a sprint for place 4.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018You need to give it everything\u2019<\/h2>\nDemi Vollering hugs runner-up Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot on the podium of the Tour of Flanders. Puck Pieterse was third (Photo: Eric Lalmand \/ Belga mag via AFP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The Kopecky group also didn\u2019t get any closer to Vollering, who was on a really strong day.<\/p>\n
It is her fifth victory of the year thus far and she is gaining more and more momentum.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s important, particularly as she pointed out that mental attitude is so important to success.<\/p>\n
\n
ADVERTISEMENT<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cIt is all in the head. You need to really believe in it and you need to give everything,\u201d she said. \u201cEverything starts with a dream and then you need to work very, very hard for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to get people and partners around you. We have the best equipment to push to our very, very limits here on Specialized bikes. In the end it all happens here.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday it is not only Easter, it is also international calm day. So that was something I wanted to keep in my mind, to try to be calm in the storm.\u201d<\/p>\n
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2269347684.jpg”] Shane Stokes Updated April 5, 2026 12:48PM Demi Vollering was a class above her rivals in the women\u2019s Tour of Flanders on Saturday, dropping a breakaway of very strong riders on the Oude Kwaremont and riding the final 19km alone. The FDJ-United Suez rider blew the doors off Tour de France Femmes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-1867441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1867441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1867441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1867441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1867441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Zoe](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2269932965.jpg?width=3840&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
![\"Demi](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2269359276.jpg?width=3840&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")