There is a simple reason Demi Vollering arrives at the Tour de France Femmes as the favourite: the race has already shown she belongs at the front of it. A win in 2023, a finish separated by four seconds in 2024 and another season spent in the thick of Europe’s biggest stage races have left the 29-year-old Dutch rider with the sort of profile that usually matters in July. The Tour de France jersey conversation may be broad at the start, but it tends to narrow quickly once the road gets serious, and Vollering is still the rider everyone else is measuring themselves against.
The race begins in Lausanne on Saturday, and this edition carries a route detail that will shape the whole story: for the first time, the Tour de France Femmes will visit Mont Ventoux three days before the finish. That alone changes the equation. Mont Ventoux is the kind of climb that exposes any uncertainty, and it gives a rider like Vollering the chance to turn overall strength into separation. She may not be the only contender, but she is the most pragmatic one.
Why Vollering remains the benchmark
Vollering’s case is built on more than reputation. She completed all three of Europe’s Grand Tours in the year since her narrow defeat, which tells you something about durability as much as ambition. Before this race, she skipped the Tour of Switzerland and her national championships, then spent three weeks training in Tignes with a fresh mind and fresh body, as Stephen Delcourt put it. That preparation matters because this is not just about arriving fit. It is about arriving with the energy to handle three weeks of pressure and the climbing that defines the race.
Delcourt also pointed to the instability of her 2024 build-up, noting that she was sick after the Tour de Suisse and crashed at the nationals. That context helps explain why a rider who lost by four seconds can still be treated as the safer pick the following year. In stage racing, the margins are rarely permanent. The better question is whether the rider has reset the conditions around the result, and Vollering appears to have done exactly that.
The pressure of being the favourite
Of course, being the favourite is not the same as being untouchable. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot won the 2025 edition, which reminds everyone that the Tour de France Femmes does not hand out titles on reputation alone. Kasia Niewiadoma showed in 2024 how little separates first from second when the final stage goes right to the wire. Vollering knows that too. A few days after the 2024 race ended, she posted online about the responsibility athletes have to young girls watching, and her comments were followed by criticism in Dutch media after she suggested weight loss might have affected her result.
Her response since then has been careful, but also revealing. “I knew this question was coming,” she said, adding that she had to be “super aware” of the words she chose because she did not want her remarks taken out of context or to undermine Ferrand-Prévot’s performance. That matters because Vollering is not just talking about the race as a competition; she is talking about the culture around it. “Young girls are watching us,” she said. “They notice what we say – and what we don’t. What we show. What gets celebrated as ‘the way’ to succeed. We, as high-performance athletes, teams, and a sport, have a responsibility.”
There is a reason those comments fit her image. Vollering has never sounded like a rider trying to flatten herself into a single mould. “I’m emotional, I have a lot of stories to tell,” she said. “I’m just a different type, different personality, I think.” That individuality is part of what makes her compelling, but it also makes her vulnerable to the old-school instincts of a sport that can still be uncomfortable with nuance. In other words, the same qualities that make her human also make her easy to misread.
What Mont Ventoux could decide
This is where the route becomes decisive. Mont Ventoux, arriving three days before the finish, should not simply be read as another mountain. It is the sort of stage that can force the race into a more honest shape, stripping away illusion and making climbing power, recovery and race control matter more than positioning alone. If Vollering is as ready as her preparation suggests, that is the moment when she can justify the label of favourite rather than merely wear it.
The broader picture is fairly clear. Vollering may not be racing against a field that revolves entirely around her, but she is still the rider most likely to manage the full range of demands: long climbs, repeated pressure, tactical patience and the mental burden of expectation. The Tour de France jersey is rarely won by the most dramatic rider. It is usually won by the one who can turn the biggest days into manageable ones. That is why, in a race opening in Lausanne and heading toward Mont Ventoux, Vollering remains the most convincing name on the start list.
She has already shown she can win this race. She has already shown she can lose it by the smallest of margins. Now she gets the chance to show whether those lessons have made her even harder to beat.
