Demi Vollering soloed to victory in stage eight of Tour de France Femmes to claim the coveted yellow jersey on the penultimate day of the Tour.
The race lead has switched sides once again after Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney took the stage eight victory on Mont Ventoux on Friday to replace Marlen Reusser in the yellow jersey.
Niewiadoma-Phinney led the general classification by 15 seconds over Vollering coming into Saturday’s 171.9km flat stage from Sisteron to Nice, as per BBC Sport.
The longest stage in the 2023 Tour had been expected to favor the sprinters but the peloton lost touch with them on the ascent of Cote de la Ginestiere – the last climb of the day – some 8km before the finish.
Late Strike in Nice
Dutch FDJ-Suez rider Vollering attacked from the leading duo comprising Niewiadoma-Phinney and Elisa Longo Borghini at the summit of the Cote de la Ginestiere and quickly made off, with 6km to go.
Vollering stretched her lead on the descent and made it impossible for Niewiadoma-Phinney and Longo Borghini to catch her.
Vollering triumphantly won her second stage in this edition of the Tour de France Femmes to set up an exciting finale on Sunday.
The duo caught up with Vollering 17 seconds behind which, considering the time bonuses, gives Niewiadoma-Phinney an eight-second lead over the current race winner in the overall classification.
Reusser is 72 seconds behind them going into the last 99.2km stage that starts and finishes in Nice.
“In a stage race, you live day by day, so you can be disappointed overnight but the next morning you have to put on a new mask and go again,” said Vollering.
“The funny thing was that this morning I had a kind of deja vu [to earlier this year]. I saw that I would take yellow here but it didn’t make sense [at the time].
“I reminded myself during the race that I can do it and I had to dig so deep, to go through so much pain, but somehow we made it happen.
“Tomorrow is going to be super hard, anything can happen on the last day, but at least I start in yellow.”
