It looked like a Classic on paper, and it made for a classic stage that fans and riders will hardly ever forget. The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift headed into the French Riviera with a course punctuated in its final 20 kilometres by two climbs and a proper wall, as steep as 13% in its 500 metres. Well set up by her FDJ United-Suez teammates, Demi Vollering used it as a springboard to unleash a devastating acceleration, crack Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L'Imad) and the owner of the Yellow Jersey, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon//SRAM), and fly away to the finish in Nice’s Promenade des Anglais, where the Dutch rider put the stage win in her bag and unseated the Polish rider from the overall lead. Vollering is thus in the Yellow Jersey with 8” on Niewiadoma-Phinney and 1’12” on Marlen Reusser (Movistar Team) with just one stage to go. All is set for an exciting finale this Sunday in Nice, with a short and breathtaking course featuring four climbs up the Col d’Èze to settle this 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
126 riders took the start in the 8th stage of the 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift as of 14:02 CEST, the longest in this edition of the event with 171.9 rather flat kilometres from Sisteron to Nice and a couple of Cat 4 climbs very close to the finish that opened a window of opportunity for the attackers to prevent a bunch sprint. There was one non-starter in defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma | Lease a Bike).
Adegeest and Squiban, a powerful duo up the road
The peloton set off under a bright sun that seemingly spur riders to go on the offensive, with Visma | Lease a Bike particularly keen on sending women up the road. It took 27 kilometres for the breakaway to jump clear, with Maëva Squiban (UAE Team L’Imad) and Loes Adegeest (Lidl-Trek) forming a powerful duo at the head of the race. Many riders tried to jump across from the peloton and failed to do so. For instance: Morgane Coston (Ma Petite Entreprise) spent nearly 25 kilometres between the head of the race and the bunch, unsuccessfully trying to bridge back.
Adegeest was first across the first listed climb of the day, the Col des Robines (Cat 4, km 61), where the breakaway clocked their maximum gap of 6’00” on the peloton, while Squiban led the way at the Col de Toutes Aures (Cat 4, km 76.5). At that point, their advantage was down to 5’45” due to the work of SD Worx-Protime, AG Insurance-Soudal and Liv-AlUla-Jayco, yet it would increase up to their maximum gap, 6’15”, over the subsequent descent.
Demi Vollering cracks Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney
FDJ United-Suez started contributing to the chase too, bringing the breakaway’s advantage down to 5’25” at the Intermediate Sprint in Puget-Théniers (IS, km 105.7), with Adegeest first across. The gap steadily reduced to 1’40” with 20 kilometres to go, when EF Education-Oatly also started pulling from the bunch. Canyon//SRAM led the way up the Côte de Colomars (Cat 4, km 154.7), where Squiban was first at the summit to later crash in the descent, leaving Adegeest alone in the lead. The Dutch got caught with 9 kilometres to go and claimed the Combativity prize.
Come the Côte de la Ginestière (Cat 4, km 164.2), FDJ United-Suez really upped the pace with Franziska Koch, Juliette Berthet and Célia Gery, who led the mere dozen riders able to cope with her sparkling rhythm across the summit. After a quick 1.4-kilometre descent, the riders hit a 500-metre wall-like uphill kick at 13% average, with sections as steep as 16%, that was used by Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) as a springboard for a devastating attack that Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L'Imad) and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon//SRAM) tried to counter before surrendering right as they were cresting the wall. The Italian champion took the lion’s share of the chase, with the Yellow Jersey struggling on her wheel as Vollering pulled away just enough to dethrone her by 8”. A group with the rest of the GC contenders, led by Kim Le Court-Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal), made it home 38” in arrears.
