CyclingAnalysis
Giro, Tour, rainbow jersey: Demi Vollering’s season for the record books
In 2026 Vollering won the Giro and became the first two-time winner of the Tour de France Femmes, before finally taking the world road title in Montreal. The same two riders finished behind her in both races.
For several seasons Demi Vollering has been one of the two or three best riders in women’s cycling. In 2026 she put together a year that has few equals in the modern sport.
She won the Tour of Flanders and Liège–Bastogne–Liège in the spring. She won the Giro d’Italia Women. She became the first rider to win the Tour de France Femmes twice. And in Montreal at the end of September she won the world road race title for the first time.
The Giro: a final-day turnaround
Vollering chose to skip the Vuelta Femenina and target the Giro, which had been moved in the calendar. Going into the final stage she trailed Anna van der Breggen by a little under a minute. She took the lead on the last day.
The win made Vollering the second woman to have won all three of cycling’s Grand Tours, after Annemiek van Vleuten. She had won the Tour in 2023 and the Vuelta in 2024 and 2025.
The Tour: the first double
At the Tour de France Femmes, held from 1 to 9 August and finishing in Nice, Vollering built her victory steadily rather than in one blow. A strong time trial on stage 4 and a win on the hilly stage 5 put her in contention; she limited her losses on the climb of Mont Ventoux; she took an eight-second lead on the penultimate stage; and she won the final stage alone.
She finished 1 minute 18 seconds ahead of Poland’s Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, with Italy’s Elisa Longo Borghini third, 4:29 back. Riding for FDJ United–Suez, Vollering became the first two-time winner of the modern race, which began in 2022.
Montreal: the missing piece
Despite everything else she had won, Vollering had never been world road race champion. In Montreal, on the hilly Mont-Royal circuit, she finally took the rainbow jersey.
Niewiadoma-Phinney was second and Longo Borghini third, according to Cyclingnews’ race report, the same three riders, in the same order, as on the podium of the Tour.
What sets the season apart
Grand Tour wins, Monuments and world titles demand different things: three weeks of consistency, one-day explosiveness, and the ability to deliver on a single date chosen by the calendar. Vollering’s season combined all three.
It also says something about how she raced. Her Tour was built across the whole nine days (a strong time trial, careful defence on the hardest climb and late stage wins) rather than decided in a single day.
At the elite end of the women’s peloton the rivalry is close: after nine days of racing at the Tour, Vollering’s margin over Niewiadoma-Phinney was 1 minute 18 seconds. This year, in every race that mattered, Vollering was the one who came out on top.
