Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) outsprinted Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) and Marlen Reusser (Movistar) on stage 5 of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift\u00a0in a day that blew open the general classification.<\/p>\n
Reusser defended the yellow jersey Wednesday despite Vollering and her teammates dominating the final of a brutal climb-fest in the Beaujolais.<\/p>\n
However, this stage wreaked havoc on several key pre-race favorites behind them.<\/span><\/p>\n Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot\u2018s hope at a title defense all but disappeared Wednesday.<\/p>\n The Frenchwoman was gapped by Vollering\u2019s relentless pressure on the penultimate climb of the day and finished 2:35 minutes back. Clearly the Visma-Lease a Bike leader\u2019s disaster TT on Tuesday was a warning of things to come.<\/p>\n The UAE L\u2019Imad duo of Elisa Longo Borghini and Paula Blasi also suffered damaging losses Wednesday, as did Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime).<\/p>\n Vollering didn\u2019t drop Reusser like she would have hoped with a volley of attacks in the final hour of racing on this 5th stage. However, the Dutchwoman looked by far the most assured rider in the race.<\/p>\n The 29-year-old hailed the work of her teammates after FDJ United-Suez worked a multi-rider play by putting satellite riders in the break as well as holding workers for Vollering in the main group.<\/p>\n \u201cToday it was a really cool race. The whole team, every single rider was part of it, and I enjoy those victories the most,\u201d Vollering said at the finish. \u201cThe way I managed to win that sprint, I thought I was not going to make it, it was really fast to the finish line.\u201d<\/p>\n The result Wednesday carved huge gaps in the overall and underlined who the true contenders are for the final yellow jersey.<\/p>\n Reusser leads Vollering by 12 seconds ahead of the huge climb of Mont Ventoux on stage 7 on Friday. Niewiadoma is third overall at 1:17.<\/p>\n But from there, the gap to fourth is huge. Niewiadoma\u2019s teammate Antonia Niedermaier is fourth at 2:40. Dominika W\u0142odarczyk (UAE L\u2019Imad) is fifth at 2:54.<\/p>\n And defending champion PFP? She\u2019s got a near-impossible five minutes to make up in the mountains.<\/p>\n Vollering said at the finish she\u2019s not going to assume she\u2019s got the upper hand on Reusser, a diesel engine powerhouse who will be put to the test Friday on Mont Ventoux.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve won the Tour and so has Kasia, and Marlen is the one who\u2019s never managed to win, so she has to work for it,\u201d Vollering said Wednesday. \u201cIt will be a hard battle, because she [Reusser] is a rider you cannot beat easily. I will try everything to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Stage 5 of the Tour de France Femmes was touted as one of the most important stages of the race.<\/p>\n Only the stage 4 TT and stage 7 to Ventoux was hyped as much as Wednesday\u2019s leg-burner in the Beaujolais.<\/p>\n Wednesday\u2019s 140km stage stacked eight categorized climbs amassing 2,900m of gain into an Ardennes-style parcours<\/em>. Much of the climbing was loaded into the front half of the stage.<\/p>\n A sting in the tail was delivered courtesy of two steep climbs in the final 30km.<\/p>\n It took more than 60km of racing for the decisive break of the day to split from the bunch. All the major GC teams got at least one domestique into the dangerous 16-rider move.<\/p>\n The break was strong and worked well, but Vollering and FDJ United-Suez had a plan.<\/p>\n The Dutchwoman and her teammate Celia Gery lit up the reduced peloton on the Cat 3. Col de Durbize at 30km to go.<\/p>\n Van der Breggen was gapped first before Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot lost the wheels. Longo Borghini also began struggling before her teammate \u201c#freeBlasi\u201d Paula Blasi dropped back to help.<\/p>\n Movistar and FDJ United-Suez then dropped breakaway riders Lianne Lippert and Franziska Koch back to the small GC group in a tactical master-move. The two superdomestiques piled on at the front of the classification group to support Reusser and Vollering and drive the wedge into their rivals.<\/p>\n Vollering was relentlessly aggressive on the steep final climb of Mont Brouilly. The former Tour de France winner surged multiple times on the 3km hill but couldn\u2019t get the gap on Reusser and Niewiadoma.<\/p>\n Powerhouse TT rider Reusser had to dig deep to hang on to the two top climbers on the 8 percent grades and only narrowly kept in contact before the flat 8km final.<\/p>\n Vollering, Reusser, and Niewiadoma pulled through as a trio toward the finish as they settled in for a 3-up sprint.<\/p>\n Niewiadoma tried to spring a surprise on her faster-finishing rivals by accelerating early at around 300m to go, but Vollering caught her wheel and kicked past for the win.<\/p>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/tour-de-france-femmes\/tour-de-france-femmes-stage-5-report-results\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2289206931.jpg”] Jim Cotton Updated August 5, 2026 11:07AM Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) outsprinted Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) and Marlen Reusser (Movistar) on stage 5 of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift\u00a0in a day that blew open the general classification. Reusser defended the yellow jersey Wednesday despite Vollering and her teammates dominating the final […]<\/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-2078898","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\/2078898","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=2078898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2078898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2078898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2078898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2078898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Is the Tour de France Femmes now a three-rider race?<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2288371576.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
An Ardennes-style bruiser in French wine country<\/h2>\n
Ferrand-Prevot\u2019s title defense fades<\/h2>\n
![\"Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2289209102.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
Vollering can\u2019t get rid of Reusser<\/h2>\n
Tour de France Femmes stage 5 results<\/h2>\n\n<\/div>\n