Vollering reveals she considered a year away from cycling before second Tour Femmes victory

Demi Vollering's (FDJ United-Suez) second Tour de France Femmes title came twelve months after she had considered taking a break from the sport. 

In an interview with The Athletic, Vollering outlined some of the many obstacles she had to overcome in order to win the yellow jersey for the second time in her career, following back-to-back second-place finishes in 2024 and 2025.

The challenges facing Vollering were not only physical, but also mental. The European champion revealed that following the 2025 edition, she had pushed herself to the limit, so much so that she had considered stepping away from the sport for a prolonged break.

“Last year, I just overdid everything,” Vollering told The Athletic. 

“At one point I was just so done, I had pushed my body way too far, and also mentally, maybe a bit too far over my limits. After the Tour de France last year, I was even considering a year off because I didn’t enjoy it at all anymore.”

After taking a week off following the 2025 Tour, Vollering realised she still had not recovered and, together with her team, decided to skip the Tour de Romandie for more rest. Instead, she travelled to the mountains in her camper van, taking only a gravel bike and riding without any goals or expectations.

The change in mindset helped Vollering rediscover her enjoyment for the sport, and she returned to racing at the European championships in October, where she took victory, heading into 2026 on a high. 

Vollering’s red-hot form carried into 2026 as she claimed major victories including the Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Giro d’Italia, setting up for another attempt at Tour de France glory. 

The road to yellow was far from straightforward, though. A significant setback came on stage 3, when Vollering was involved in a crash before the TV coverage began. 

The incident left the European champion with a swollen left knee, something that Vollering would have to adapt to for the remainder of the Tour.

“My (left) knee, it was pretty painful from the crash,” she says. “It was getting really swollen and super-painful. Luckily, only the two or three stages after it happened I had pain in the stages,” she said. 

“And then the last two stages, I didn’t have it during anymore, (but) I definitely had a reaction after the stages.”

Vollering also explained how missing out on victory atop Mont Ventoux, “was like a crushed dream” after she finished second on stage 7, 1:16 behind Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon//Sram), who moved into the yellow jersey, with just two stages remaining.

“The only expectation I had was to win on Mont Ventoux, (and) that was the only thing I couldn’t do,” she said. 

“I was very disappointed, of course, also because I think we all almost expected that we would be in yellow after that stage. For me, it’s where it all started and it would feel like a complete story, but that just didn’t work out."

However, the disappointment quickly turned into fuel for motivation as Vollering made the all-important difference just 24 hours later in Nice, as she claimed her second stage win and moved into yellow with one stage remaining. 

In the post-race flash interview, Vollering explained that she had a sense of deja vu about winning the penultimate stage, and expanded on it further to The Athletic.

“On the way back to the bus, I was already checking VeloViewer for the day after,” she says. “I did the record in January there as well, so I knew that this is a very hard-level climb. I was immediately in my head planning the perfect attack there.”

The final stage saw Vollering seal her second Tour in style, riding clear from Niewiadoma-Phinney on the Col d’Eze, cementing herself in the pantheon of greats and becoming the first rider to win multiple editions of the Tour in the modern era.