Demi Vollering showed she is back to her very best on Sunday, following up her uphill victory on Wednesday in Fl\u00e8che Wallonne with a stomping solo success in Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge.<\/p>\n
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The Dutch FDJ United-Suez rider attacked the other race favorites on the climb of La Redoute and dropped the likes of Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM Zondacrypto), Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Premier Tech) and the talented young Canadian Isabella Holmgren (Lidl-Trek).<\/p>\n
The latter was replaced in the chase by former world champion Anna van der Breggen, a double Li\u00e8ge winner, but while the SD Worx-ProTime rider added some pace Vollering responded in turn and reached the finish well ahead.<\/p>\n
Van der Breggen led out the sprint but was passed by Pieterse and Niewiadoma, who sealed the remaining places on the podium 1\u201929 after Vollering\u2019s emphatic victory salute.<\/p>\n
In-form Spanish rider Paula Blasi (UAE Team ADQ) outsprinted Holmgren for fifth, continuing what is her best season thus far.<\/p>\n
Vollering\u2019s victory means she becomes the first woman to win three editions of the race since it was introduced in 2017.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt is incredible. I really wanted to win again here, I really love this race,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt brings back for me so many good memories, being still a club rider, riding here. Without even having a women\u2019s race yet, I was already dreaming about it without knowing if there would ever be a women\u2019s race. But then finally we got one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI became a pro and I win for the third time here. It is incredible, I am super proud. Women\u2019s sport deserves so much more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gambling big, pulling it off<\/h2>\nDemi Vollering, Puck Pieterse (l) and Kasia Niewiadoma were the podium finishers (Photo: Luc Claessen\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Vollering has long been one of the strongest in women\u2019s cycling and won the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift in 2023. She lost out to Niewiadoma one year later after losing considerable time in a crash, and last year had to accept second again when Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot dominated the race.<\/p>\n
Returning to the top has been a clear mission and, this spring, she appears to be well on her way.<\/p>\n
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She had won six times prior to the start, including her wins in the Tour of Flanders and Fl\u00e8che Wallonne, and was one of the most closely watched.<\/p>\n
Early on the focus was on another Dutchwoman, with Femke Gerritse (Team SD Worx \u2013 Protime) attacking 40km in and staying out front until the C\u00f4te de la Haute-Lev\u00e9e. That was followed by a seven woman move containing Holmgren and others, but these were reeled in prior to the start of La Redoute.<\/p>\n
Vollering was looking impressive and hit the gas 600 m from the summit, putting in repeated accelerations and blowing the other riders away. Holmgren, Niewiadoma and Pieterse emerged as the best of the rest and were 22 seconds back with 30km to go, trying but failing to make inroads into that lead.<\/p>\n
Vollering increased her advantage to 1:09 with 10.2 km left, at which time Van der Breggen bridged to the chasers and put Holmgren out the back.<\/p>\n
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The former world TT champion gave a boost to that group but Vollering responded in turn and actually increased her lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really wanted to go all out for this victory and not have any regrets afterwards,\u201d she said, speaking about her attack. \u201cSo we made a plan to go from La Redoute. Actually we wanted really to have a teammate in the front before, but that didn\u2019t really work out. Still I went.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a long way from there but I managed to finish it off.\u201d<\/p>\n
She did, and the manner plus the margin of the victory makes it one of the best wins of her career.<\/p>\n
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2273227260.jpg”] Shane Stokes Updated April 26, 2026 11:10AM Demi Vollering showed she is back to her very best on Sunday, following up her uphill victory on Wednesday in Fl\u00e8che Wallonne with a stomping solo success in Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge. The Dutch FDJ United-Suez rider attacked the other race favorites on the climb of La Redoute […]<\/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-1904073","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\/1904073","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=1904073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1904073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1904073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1904073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1904073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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