'Ventoux inspired me a lot' - Tour Femmes brings Vollering back to the mountain that made her a climber

Vollering first tackled Mont Ventoux as a teenager during a family holiday, and her ascent was the first indication of her aptitude for climbing. The Dutchwoman has since gone on to win five Grand Tours, including this year’s Giro d’Italia.

“We all drove down there in a van and went camping,” Vollering told the Guardian. “It 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.

“It 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.”

The Tour Femmes sets off from Lausanne on Saturday, but the Giant of Provence will already be looming on the horizon. The summit finish on stage 7 looks set to be the defining afternoon of the race.

A Swiss resident, Vollering might feel a touch of home advantage during the Grand Départ, and that feeling might also persist on the exposed upper slopes of the Ventoux.

“That’s 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,” Vollering said. 

“Mentally 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.”

The FDJ United-Suez rider will also be inspired by her sequence of second-place finishes at the Tour Femmes. She won the race in 2023, but she was beaten by her compatriot Annemiek van Vleuten in 2022 while she missed out by just four seconds to Kasia Niewiadoma despite winning on Alpe d’Huez on the final day in 2024.

Twelve months ago, meanwhile, Vollering was the best of the rest behind a rampant Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, who made good on her pledge to mark her return to road racing with a Tour victory.

After Vollering’s defeat to Ferrand-Prévot a year ago, she was asked to comment on the effect of her rival’s pre-Tour weight loss on her climbing performances, and she also revisited the matter in an Instagram post shortly afterwards, saying “I don’t want to force my body to become something it’s not.”

Speaking to the Guardian, Vollering expressed regret that her words were viewed in some quarters as a criticism of Ferrand-Prévot.

“I was like, ‘OK, I need to be very careful with my words now.’ I knew if I said something, maybe they’d write it down out of context or ‘hear’ it differently than I meant it,” Vollering said of the Tour’s final press conference.

“I 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’s performance.”