Demi Vollering wins the Tour de France Femmes

The torch has been passed. Anna van der Breggen retired at the end of the 2021 season, Annemiek van Vleuten is hanging up the helmet after this year and Marianne Vos can’t continue forever. With her victory in the second edition of the Tour de France Femmes, and her large lead in the Women’s WorldTour with six rounds to go, Demi Vollering takes up the helm of Dominant Dutch Rider. In Sunday’s concluding time trial Vollering kept the yellow jersey she earned on Saturday in a commanding performance on the Tourmalet. The best Canadian performance of the Tour was reserved for the final day, as Olivia Baril rolled to seventh place.

Vollering went into Sunday with a 1:50 lead on second-spot Katarzyna Niewiadoma and 2:28 over van Vleuten. There was little chance her throne would be usurped, but could van Vleuten overtake Niewiadoma?

The Course

The conclusion of the 2023 TdFF was a 22.6-km chrono around Pau. There was a 1.4-km, 7.4 percent hill smack dab in the middle where the intermediate time was taken. The Pau finish came at the top of a rise.

An early leader was Italian Vittoria Guazzini of FDJ-Suez with a time of 30:36. It would take a long time for her Australian teammate Grace Brown to shove her off the hotseat with 29:55, but before Brown could even sit down, Marlen Reusser posted 29:15.

Canada’s Olivia Baril was on a good ride, with the ninth-fastest intermediate time in the final quarter of the stage. With 30 riders to finish, she was third at 30:33.

Van Vleuten wasn’t having a good day; at the intermediate checkpoint, not only was she not catching Niewiadoma, she was also losing her podium spot to Lotte Kopecky, who passed her two-minute woman Ashleigh Moolman.

SD Worx took all three top positions: Reusser, Vollering and Kopecky.

In the top-20 the gaps between the riders leaving start house increased from a minute to two minutes.

2023 Tour de France Femmes Stage 8
1) Marlen Reusser (Switzerland/SD Worx-Protime) 29:15
2) Demi Vollering (The Netherlands/SD Worx-Protime) +0:10
3) Lotto Kopecky (Belgium/SD Worx-Protime) +0:23
7) Olivia Baril (Canada/UAE Team ADQ) +1:18
53) Magdeleine Vallieres (Canada/EF Education-TIBCO-SVB) +3:08
57) Simone Boilard (Canada/St Michel–Mavic–Auber93) +3:14
78) Alison Jackson (Canada/EF Education-TIBCO-SVB) +3:44
89) Clara Emond (Canada/Arkéa) +4:05
113) Sara Poidevin (Canada/EF Education-TIBCO-SVB) +5:17

2023 Tour de France Femmes Final GC
1) Demi Vollering (The Netherlands/SD Worx-Protime) 25:17:10
2) Lotto Kopecky (Belgium/SD Worx-Protime) +3:03
3) Katarzyna Niewiadoma (Poland/Canyon-SRAM) s.t.
4) Annemiek van Vleuten (The Netherlands/Movistar) +3:59
23) Clara Emond (Canada/Arkéa) +25:05
29) Olivia Baril (Canada/UAE Team ADQ) +32:39
34) Simone Boilard (Canada/St Michel–Mavic–Auber93) +37:18
80) Sara Poidevin (Canada/EF Education-TIBCO-SVB) +1:08:41
97) Magdeleine Vallieres (Canada/EF Education-TIBCO-SVB) +1:24:48
108) Alison Jackson (Canada/EF Education-TIBCO-SVB) +1:31:50