‘I’m just a different type’: Demi Vollering gears up for Tour de France Femmes tilt

French pulses were set racing by Pauline-Ferrand Prévot’s win in the 2025 Tour de France Femmes, but the pragmatic choice of favourite for this year’s race, which begins in Lausanne on Saturday, is Demi Vollering.

The 29-year old Dutch rider, leader of the FDJ United-Suez team and the first €1m athlete in women’s racing, combines outstanding results – this year she completed a grand slam of all three of Europe’s Grand Tours – with an outspoken personality.

Vollering’s heart-on-her-sleeve persona has won her fans across the world. She posts pictures of herself riding with her dog in a rucksack and tackles the issues of women’s mental health, athlete wellbeing and eating disorders, without missing a beat.

Vollering won the Femmes in 2023, but in 2024 lost to Kasia Niewiadoma by just four seconds, after a nail-biting final stage to Alpe d’Huez. Second again last year, she suffered the indignity of suggestions from her domestic media that she might have beaten the French rider if she’d lost more weight. Before this year’s race she revisited the incident.

“I knew this question was coming,” she says, recalling the final press conference. “I was like, ‘OK, I need to be very careful with my words now.’ I knew if I said something, maybe they’d write it down out of context or ‘hear’ it differently than I meant it.

“I was super aware of the words I was choosing. But I was not happy about a lot of articles, or some subtitles, that were used, just for clicks. It was also difficult because, of course, I never wanted to undermine Pauline’s performance.”

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot won the 2025 Tour de France Femmes. Photograph: Jean-Christophe Bott/AP

A few days after the race ended she posted online: “Young girls are watching us. 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.”

Looking back now, she acknowledges that, in her native Netherlands, she is sometimes seen as “too much”.

“There are always people who are not positive about what you say or find it too much, especially in cycling, since it’s a bit of an old-school sport,” she says. “I’m emotional, I have a lot of stories to tell. I’m just a different type, different personality, I think.”

Vollering comes to this year’s Tour fresh and rested after a change of schedule. She did not race in the Tour of Switzerland or in her national championships.

Demi Vollering powers up the brutal Oude Kwaremont on her way to her first Tour of Flanders victory in Oudenaarde in April. Photograph: Stijn Bastens/Sipa US/Alamy

Her team manager, Stephen Delcourt, takes up the story. “Last year she was sick after the Tour de Suisse and crashed at the nationals,” he says. “We did a three-week training camp in Tignes, with a fresh mind and fresh body, and she can really focus on the main goal.”

Ferrand-Prévot’s victory in 2025 was founded on an explosive ascent of the Col de la Madeleine in the Alps. This year’s key mountain stage will come three days before the finish with a first-ever visit by the Tour de France Femmes to Mont Ventoux. It’s a climb that Vollering knows well from holidays as a teenager.

“We all drove down there in a van and went camping,” she says. “It was the first time I saw real mountains and the first time I rode up a real mountain. I was just so impressed. I really enjoyed riding up there.

“It was hard, but I was looking around the whole time and really pushing myself. I passed some men and I was super proud to see that they were really suffering and that I was passing them.”

Vollering said Ventoux was where she discovered her climbing skills. “That’s where I really found out I was a pretty good climber because against all the other girls I trained with, I was always the first at the top. And the coaches who came with us – I left them all behind too. I could see that my level was pretty good.

“Mentally too, I was able to suffer, maybe more than average people on that mountain. I saw that riding uphill was my strength and suited me as the type of athlete I am. The Ventoux inspired me a lot.”

She is excited by the prospect of the Tour de France Femmes going to Britain in a year’s time. “I follow some British football teams and they’re amazing. They are really inspiring people to watch. So, it’s cool to see [the Tour coming to Britain].”

Despite the rapid growth of women’s sport she says cycling remains male dominated. “I think probably it’s still mostly men who follow our sport, but I feel like it’s changing slowly, especially with women’s sport growing more. You see more women turning up at our races, more children, more families who come to watch and to support. So, for me, this is a really positive change.”