{"id":909435,"date":"2026-09-29T05:44:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T05:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/909435\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T05:44:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T05:44:17","slug":"2025-uci-road-world-championships-vollering-caught-not-beaten-cycling-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/909435\/","title":{"rendered":"2025 UCI Road World Championships: Vollering Caught, Not Beaten – Cycling West"},"content":{"rendered":"

Demi Vollering attacked 38.5 kilometers from the finish in Montr\u00e9al, watched her lead shrink to nothing before the final lap, and refused to accept it. Her reward was the one jersey her collection had been missing.<\/p>\n

Demi Vollering didn\u2019t dare look back. For most of the last 40 kilometers of Saturday\u2019s race she rode alone at the front, and the gap to the chasers never grew large enough to let her breathe: 20 seconds, then 22, then 15. Then, just before the bell, it was gone. Four of the strongest riders in the world were on her wheel, and the race she had tried to win alone became a race she would have to win all over again.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

She won it anyway, in an uphill sprint so close that she and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney were given the same time. Elisa Longo Borghini finished four seconds back, and the Dutch rider finally had the rainbow jersey.<\/p>\n

The Mont-Royal circuit set the terms. The 13.4-kilometer loop wraps around the mountain at the heart of the city and climbs the Voie Camillien-Houde on every lap, 1.67 kilometers at an average of 7.4 percent with pitches of 10. The women faced it eight times inside 180.1 kilometers of racing, and by the final lap it had stripped the race down to its strongest five.<\/p>\n

One jersey missing<\/p>\n

The rainbow jersey fills the one conspicuous gap in a collection few riders of her generation can match. The Dutch rider has won the yellow jersey of the Tour de France Femmes twice, in 2023 and 2026, the red jersey of La Vuelta Femenina in 2024 and 2025, the pink jersey of this year\u2019s Giro d\u2019Italia Women, and the European champion\u2019s jersey in 2025, along with a long list of classics and stage races. Her 2026 season has been extraordinary even by her standards: 15 victories, including the Ronde van Vlaanderen, La Fl\u00e8che Wallonne, Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge, the Giro and the Tour.<\/p>\n

The world title had always slipped away. She had taken silver in the individual time trial in 2024 and bronze in 2025, and a bronze at the 2023 UCI Gravel World Championships, but never the road race stripes. On paper, Saturday\u2019s race looked built for her. That didn\u2019t make it simple.<\/p>\n

The Dutch take control<\/p>\n

The Oranje squad took charge of the race from the start, riding at the front behind the early attackers. The day\u2019s main breakaway included Bulgaria\u2019s Gergana Stoyanova, Portugal\u2019s Beatriz Roxo, Norway\u2019s Marte Berg Edseth and the USA\u2019s Natalie Quinn, and it reached the final circuit with a lead of around three minutes. Behind it, the race lost one of its central figures. A mass crash in the peloton brought down the defending world champion, Canada\u2019s Magdeleine Valli\u00e8res Mill, racing on home roads, along with Spain\u2019s Paula Blasi.<\/p>\n

Once the race reached Mont-Royal, the intensity rose lap by lap. After a series of attacks, France\u2019s Maeva Squiban powered clear with 52 kilometers remaining. The Dutch organized a hard chase behind her, and on the next ascent of the Camillien-Houde, 38.5 kilometers from the finish, Puck Pieterse launched her leader. Vollering caught Squiban quickly, went past her, and rode on alone. Squiban fought on and still finished ninth.<\/p>\n

Too early?<\/p>\n

A solo from nearly 40 kilometers out is a statement of confidence, and Vollering\u2019s rivals refused to let it become a procession. The chase behind her held a strong pace and kept her on a short leash. The gap never grew into the kind of lead that lets a rider relax, and Vollering felt every second of that pressure. \u201cThere were so many moments I thought I went too early,\u201d she admitted. \u201cThey stayed so close the whole time and I didn\u2019t dare to turn around and look back because I felt like they were almost in my wheel already. It was 20 seconds, 22, 15\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Demi Vollering (Netherlands) leading Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Poland) and Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy) on the final climb up Mont-Royal at the 2026 UCI Road World Championships. Photo courtesy Mondiaux2026<\/p>\n

Then they were on her wheel. Poland\u2019s Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, Italy\u2019s Elisa Longo Borghini, Switzerland\u2019s Marlen Reusser, crowned time trial champion the previous Sunday, and France\u2019s Juliette Berthet made the junction just before the final lap. The bell that sent them into it was rung by Genevi\u00e8ve Gambillon, the Frenchwoman who won the women\u2019s world road title in Montr\u00e9al in 1974, a reminder of how long the city has been writing this race\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

For most riders, being caught after a long solo means the race is over. The legs have been spent and the rivals smell it. Vollering refused to see it that way. \u201cAt one point, they came back,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it still wasn\u2019t over, I had to still believe in it. I just dared, tried again and never gave up to the finish line. I was not planning to give it away anymore, I was like: \u2018No, no it\u2019s mine.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Demi Vollering (Netherlands) wins the 2026 UCI Road World Championships in Montr\u00e9al, Quebec, Canada on September 26, 2026. Photo courtesy of Mondiaux2026\/James Startt.<\/p>\n

Berthet could not hold the pace on the final lap and finished fifth, 39 seconds down, which left four women to decide the title. Pieterse, whose lead-out had launched Vollering two laps earlier, had given everything by then and rolled in sixth, more than a minute and a half back. Vollering was on her own. The tension peaked on the uphill finishing straight, and she stayed cool, timed her effort and held off Niewiadoma-Phinney by the narrowest of margins, both riders given the same time. Longo Borghini took bronze four seconds back, and Reusser finished fourth at eight seconds.<\/p>\n

Guts and belief<\/p>\n

Vollering spoke with visible emotion moments after the finish, and most of what she said concerned the women who had worked for her. \u201cI worked so hard towards this goal,\u201d she said. \u201cIt takes guts to truly believe with your whole heart and, together with the team around you, with such strong girls. They all sacrifice for you. It\u2019s a lot to ask from them, but I\u2019m so proud of everybody from the team.\u201d The Dutch, she said, \u201ctook the whole race in their hands; they rode the whole race in the front and then Puck did an amazing lead-out; and I could just not not finish the job!\u201d<\/p>\n

She becomes the ninth Dutch woman to win the elite road race world title, and the list she joins reads like a history of the women\u2019s sport. Keetie van Oosten-Hage won in 1968 and 1976. Tineke Fopma won in 1975, Petra de Bruin in 1979, and Leontien van Moorsel in 1991 and 1993. Marianne Vos took three titles, in 2006, 2012 and 2013. Chantal Blaak won in 2017, Anna van der Breggen in 2018 and 2020, and Annemiek van Vleuten in 2019 and 2022. Few of them won it after being caught on the final lap and deciding, simply, that the jersey was still theirs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Demi Vollering (Netherlands) wins the 2026 UCI Road World Championships in Montr\u00e9al, Quebec, Canada on September 26, 2026. Photo courtesy Mondiaux2026.
\nThe hard way<\/p>\n

For years the world road title had been the race Vollering circled and never won. She collected medals around it while the stripes went to others. She arrived in Montr\u00e9al with the Giro, the Tour and three of the spring\u2019s biggest classics already won in 2026, and she left with the one title that had kept slipping away.<\/p>\n

She won it the hard way: alone, then caught, then alone again in the final meters of the finishing straight. It takes guts to believe, she said. It also took a team willing to ride at the front all day, a teammate who launched her on the Camillien-Houde and had nothing left for herself, and a rider who, with the title slipping away, decided simply that it was hers.<\/p>\n

WOMEN ELITE ROAD RACE, 180.1 KM: TOP 10<\/p>\n

Position
\nRider
\nNation
\nAge
\nTime<\/p>\n

1
\nDemi Vollering
\nNetherlands
\n30
\n4:45:09<\/p>\n

2
\nKasia Niewiadoma-Phinney
\nPoland
\n32
\ns.t.<\/p>\n

3
\nElisa Longo Borghini
\nItaly
\n35
\n+0:04<\/p>\n

4
\nMarlen Reusser
\nSwitzerland
\n35
\n+0:08<\/p>\n

5
\nJuliette Berthet
\nFrance
\n28
\n+0:39<\/p>\n

6
\nPuck Pieterse
\nNetherlands
\n24
\n+1:36<\/p>\n

7
\nC\u00e9lia Gery
\nFrance
\n20
\n+2:55<\/p>\n

8
\nDominika W\u0142odarczyk
\nPoland
\n25
\n+4:16<\/p>\n

9
\nMaeva Squiban
\nFrance
\n24
\n+5:48<\/p>\n

10
\nFranziska Koch
\nGermany
\n26
\n+5:51<\/p>\n

Source: UCI. Gaps in minutes:seconds; s.t. = same time.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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