Demi Vollering wins stage eight and takes yellow on penultimate day

Demi Vollering raced clear to win stage eight of the Tour de France Femmes on Saturday on the 171.9km stage from Sisteron to Nice, claiming the leader's yellow jersey with one stage remaining.

The race lead changed hands for the second day running after Katarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney had won on Mont Ventoux to replace Marlen Reusser at the top of the general classification; that result left Niewiadoma-Phinney with a 15-second advantage over Vollering before Saturday's stage, which was the longest of this year's race.

The day looked set to favour sprinters until the bunch was whittled down on the Cote de la Ginestiere about 8km from the finish, where riders including the sprint specialists were dropped. Dutch FDJ-Suez rider Vollering then attacked in an effort to drop Niewiadoma-Phinney and Elisa Longo Borghini, going clear right before she crested the final climb with 6km to go and extending her advantage on the descent.

Vollering maintained the gap to the line to take the stage, while the chasing pair crossed 17 seconds later; with time bonuses applied, the 2023 Tour winner begins the final stage with an eight-second lead over 2024 champion Niewiadoma-Phinney. Marlen Reusser is 72 seconds adrift in third place in the overall standings.

"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."

Defending champion Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, who had finished more than 10 minutes behind Niewiadoma-Phinney on stage seven, abandoned on Saturday morning through illness. Puck Pieterse is set to claim the polka-dot jersey as leader of the mountains classification, while Lorena Wiebes holds a commanding advantage in the points classification.

Stage classification: Demi Vollering (Ned/FDJ-Suez) 4hrs 2mins 39secs; Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita/UAE Team-L'imad) +17secs; Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Pol/Canyon-SRAM) Same time; Kim le Court (Mau/AG Insurance-Soudal) +38secs; Lotte Kopecky (Bel/SD Worx–Protime) Same time; Dominika Wlodarczyk (Pol/UAE Team-L'imad) Same time; Sarah van Dam (Can/Visma-Lease a Bike) Same time; Noemi Ruegg (Swi/EF Education-Oatly) Same time; Paula Blasi (Spa/UAE Team ADQ) Same time; Cedrine Kerbaol (Fra/EF Education-Oatly) Same time.

General classification (top 10): Demi Vollering 28hrs 10mins 18secs; Marlen Reusser (Swi/Movistar) +1min 12secs; Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita/UAE Team-L'imad) +3mins 5secs; Antonia Niedermaier (Ger/Canyon-SRAM) +3mins 54secs; Cedrine Kerbaol (Fra/EF Education-Oatly) +4mins 34secs; Paula Blasi (Spa/UAE Team ADQ) +5mins 5secs; Dominika Wlodarczyk (Pol/UAE Team-L'imad) +5mins 46secs; Kim le Court (Mau/AG Insurance-Soudal) +6mins 50secs; Isabella Holmgren (Can/Lidl-Trek) +7mins 54secs.

Vollering will start the final 99.2km mountain stage, which begins and ends in Nice, wearing the yellow jersey with an eight-second advantage over Niewiadoma-Phinney and Reusser 72 seconds back in third.