{"id":850005,"date":"2026-08-08T00:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/850005\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T00:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:34:11","slug":"niewiadoma-crushes-tour-de-france-femmes-rivals-on-mont-ventoux-and-takes-overall-lead-tour-de-france-femmes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/850005\/","title":{"rendered":"Niewiadoma crushes Tour de France Femmes rivals on Mont Ventoux and takes overall lead | Tour de France Femmes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kasia Niewiadoma took a spectacular solo victory on the legendary Mont Ventoux, securing a slim overall lead in the Tour de France Femmes<\/a> after leaving behind her fellow race favourites Marlen Reusser and Demi Vollering.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to describe my feelings because I\u2019m still blown away by what just happened,\u201d Niewiadoma, who won the yellow jersey in 2024<\/a>, said of the first Tour stage victory of her career.<\/p>\n

In one of the most memorable climbing performances on the fearsome Giant of Provence, the 31-year-old Polish rider took back the best part of two minutes on Reusser, who had led the race since Tuesday\u2019s individual time trial<\/a>. With two stages remaining Niewiadoma leads overall by 15sec from Vollering, the 2023 champion. Reusser trails by 39sec in third after stage seven.<\/p>\n

Vollering\u2019s initial attack, which came on one of the climb\u2019s few hairpins, the Virage du Bois, was promptly closed down by Reusser and Niewiadoma, who, just as they had at Mont Brouilly on stage five<\/a>, stuck doggedly to the Dutch rider\u2019s wheel. Their collective effort was enough to force the issue, and the trio rode ahead to contest the stage.<\/p>\n

Niewiadoma\u2019s decisive acceleration came just under 10km from the summit, after she, Reusser and Vollering had moved ahead of the front group. Vollering and Reusser seemed more focused on each other, hesitating as Niewiadoma went clear. That sealed their fate. Since its rebirth in 2022, Niewiadoma has always finished on the podium of the Tour, and her epic duel with Vollering on Alpe d\u2019Huez in 2024 may yet be replayed in this weekend\u2019s racing in the hills around Nice.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means the world to me to get the yellow jersey by winning on the Ventoux,\u201d she said. \u201cA lot of work went into it. Each year you have to come to the Tour even stronger than the year before because the level is going up so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marlen Reusser (in yellow) and Demi Vollering pursue Kasia Niewiadoma on Mont Ventoux. Photograph: Nicolas Tucat\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Niewiadoma\u2019s pace took her clear on the approach to Chalet Reynard, while Reusser and Vollering appeared to be riding through treacle. In fact, it was more of a tactical stalemate that was finally broken when Vollering attacked Reusser in the final kilometre to finish second on the stage. Reusser crossed the line in a weary fourth place but there was plenty of suffering elsewhere on a stage in which a number of big names fell by the wayside.<\/p>\n

Among those to leave even before the stage started was Anna van der Breggen of SD Worx-Protime, who dropped out on Friday morning. The 36-year-old Dutch rider, who finished second overall in the Vuelta and third in the Giro earlier this year, was described as \u201cnot feeling at her best\u201d. \u201cWe kept hoping she would start to feel better as the race progressed, but unfortunately that improvement never came. We decided not to take any unnecessary risks and to give her the rest she needs,\u201d said the sports director Danny Stam.<\/p>\n

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Even on the less arduous slopes, before the notoriously steep bend at Saint-Est\u00e8ve that signals the start of the official climb, the peloton was dramatically reduced. Multiple riders fell away as the gradient increased. Early casualties of the pacesetting included the defending champion, Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot, and Kim Le Court, winner of stage six<\/a>, both of whom definitively waved goodbye to any lingering thoughts of a high overall finish. Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot\u2019s Visma Lease-a-Bike teammate Femke de Vries was another who suffered as the Ventoux\u2019s gradients bit into tired legs and the pair joined forces in a bid to limit their losses.<\/p>\n

At the front, Reusser\u2019s Movistar team sought to control any attacks, but Vollering\u2019s FDJ United-Suez proved equally as resilient. Noemi R\u00fcegg made a huge effort to set the pace for the EF Education-Oatly team leader, C\u00e9drine Kerbaol, but was eventually swept away by Vollering\u2019s accelerations. Niewiadoma spent time training on the Ventoux in June with her husband, the former professional Taylor Phinney, saying she sold the idea to him as a \u201cromantic getaway\u201d.<\/p>\n

There may be little love lost, however, between Niewiadoma and her old rival Vollering in the Tour\u2019s final 48 hours. \u201cWe have a strong team,\u201d Niewiadoma said, \u201cbut I\u2019m expecting a massive fight for everything \u2013 points, bonus seconds, everything \u2013 because the gap is so small.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kasia Niewiadoma took a spectacular solo victory on the legendary Mont Ventoux, securing a slim overall lead in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":850006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-850005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=850005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/850006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}