{"id":568309,"date":"2026-07-31T08:40:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T08:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/568309\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T08:40:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T08:40:20","slug":"im-just-a-different-type-demi-vollering-gears-up-for-tour-de-france-femmes-tilt-womens-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/568309\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019m just a different type\u2019: Demi Vollering gears up for Tour de France Femmes tilt | Women’s Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"

French pulses were set racing by Pauline-Ferrand Pr\u00e9vot\u2019s win in the 2025 Tour de France<\/a> Femmes, but the pragmatic choice of favourite for this year\u2019s race, which begins in Lausanne on Saturday, is Demi Vollering.<\/p>\n

The 29-year old Dutch rider, leader of the FDJ United-Suez team and the first \u20ac1m athlete in women\u2019s racing, combines outstanding results \u2013 this year she completed a grand slam of all three of Europe\u2019s Grand Tours \u2013 with an outspoken personality.<\/p>\n

Vollering\u2019s heart-on-her-sleeve persona has won her fans across the world. She posts pictures of herself riding with her dog in a rucksack and tackles the issues of women\u2019s mental health, athlete wellbeing and eating disorders, without missing a beat.<\/p>\n

Vollering won the Femmes in 2023<\/a>, but in 2024 lost to Kasia Niewiadoma by just four seconds, after a nail-biting final stage to Alpe d\u2019Huez. Second again last year<\/a>, she suffered the indignity of suggestions from her domestic media that she might have beaten the French rider if she\u2019d lost more weight. Before this year\u2019s race she revisited the incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew this question was coming,\u201d she says, recalling the final press conference. \u201cI was like, \u2018OK, I need to be very careful with my words now.\u2019 I knew if I said something, maybe they\u2019d write it down out of context or \u2018hear\u2019 it differently than I meant it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was super aware of the words I was choosing. But I was not happy about a lot of articles, or some subtitles, that were used, just for clicks. It was also difficult because, of course, I never wanted to undermine Pauline\u2019s performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot won the 2025 Tour de France Femmes. Photograph: Jean-Christophe Bott\/AP<\/p>\n

A few days after the race ended she posted online: \u201cYoung girls are watching us. They notice what we say \u2013 and what we don\u2019t. What we show. What gets celebrated as \u2018the way\u2019 to succeed. We, as high-performance athletes, teams, and a sport, have a responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking back now, she acknowledges that, in her native Netherlands, she is sometimes seen as \u201ctoo much\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are always people who are not positive about what you say or find it too much, especially in cycling, since it\u2019s a bit of an old-school sport,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m emotional, I have a lot of stories to tell. I\u2019m just a different type, different personality, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vollering comes to this year\u2019s Tour fresh and rested after a change of schedule. She did not race in the Tour of Switzerland or in her national championships.<\/p>\n

Demi Vollering powers up the brutal Oude Kwaremont on her way to her first Tour of Flanders victory in Oudenaarde in April. Photograph: Stijn Bastens\/Sipa US\/Alamy<\/p>\n

Her team manager, Stephen Delcourt, takes up the story. \u201cLast year she was sick after the Tour de Suisse and crashed at the nationals,\u201d he says. \u201cWe did a three-week training camp in Tignes, with a fresh mind and fresh body, and she can really focus on the main goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferrand-Pr\u00e9vot\u2019s victory in 2025 was founded on an explosive ascent of the Col de la Madeleine in the Alps. This year\u2019s key mountain stage will come three days before the finish with a first-ever visit by the Tour de France Femmes to Mont Ventoux. It\u2019s a climb that Vollering knows well from holidays as a teenager.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all drove down there in a van and went camping,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was the first time I saw real mountains and the first time I rode up a real mountain. I was just so impressed. I really enjoyed riding up there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard, but I was looking around the whole time and really pushing myself. I passed some men and I was super proud to see that they were really suffering and that I was passing them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vollering said Ventoux was where she discovered her climbing skills. \u201cThat\u2019s where I really found out I was a pretty good climber because against all the other girls I trained with, I was always the first at the top. And the coaches who came with us \u2013 I left them all behind too. I could see that my level was pretty good.<\/p>\n

\u201cMentally too, I was able to suffer, maybe more than average people on that mountain. I saw that riding uphill was my strength and suited me as the type of athlete I am. The Ventoux inspired me a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is excited by the prospect of the Tour de France Femmes going to Britain in a year\u2019s time. \u201cI follow some British football teams and they\u2019re amazing. They are really inspiring people to watch. So, it\u2019s cool to see [the Tour coming to Britain].\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the rapid growth of women\u2019s sport she says cycling remains male dominated. \u201cI think probably it\u2019s still mostly men who follow our sport, but I feel like it\u2019s changing slowly, especially with women\u2019s sport growing more. You see more women turning up at our races, more children, more families\u00a0who come to watch and to support. So, for me, this is a really positive change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French pulses were set racing by Pauline-Ferrand Pr\u00e9vot\u2019s win in the 2025 Tour de France Femmes, but the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-568309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}