Tour of Flanders Women: Demi Vollering sails to victory after shedding rivals with a solo attack on Oude Kwaremont

Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) won the women's Tour of Flanders in style, attacking on the Oude Kwaremont with 18km to go for a solo victory. Behind Vollering, Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Premier Tech) dropped Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike) on the Paterberg, but the Frenchwoman returned on the run-in to the finish. After cooperating to hold off the chasing group, Ferrand-Prévot came past Pieterse in the sprint for second place.

A front group of 20 riders had formed on the Koppenberg, and Vollering's teammates Franzi Koch, Elise Chabbey, and Célia Gery worked hard to keep the pace high into the Oude Kruisberg, where Koch pushed hard before Vollering attacked on the Hotond climb that immediately followed.

Pieterse, Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime), Ferrand-Prévot, and Koch could just follow the European champion's acceleration, but there was a regrouping on the descent before the Oude Kwaremont.

After another lead-out by Koch, Vollering went all-in as soon as she hit the cobblestones, quickly dropping everyone else to go solo. Ferrand-Prévot hung on the longest, lost ground on the upper slopes, but could stay with Pieterse when she came past.

Behind the chase duo, Kopecky won the sprint of a group of five to finish in fourth place ahead of Zoe Backstedt (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) and Karlijn Swinkels (UAE Team ADQ).

"The final was super hard. I only thought, 'I need to go as fast as possible, and then the suffering is finally over'. I tried to find some calmness in the suffering, and in the end, I did it. But I also had to; the team did an amazing job again. It's not every year that you're healthy and come into this position, so then you really need to enjoy the moment and give it your all," Vollering said.

"It was really difficult today because we had headwind and the bunch was going pretty slow. That made it hard to stay in position, because if you're taking the front, you're killing yourself. That's what Amber [Kraak] did before the Koppenberg. It is a job that is super necessary.

"Sometimes people don't really see how important teammates are, but they make sure that you're as fresh as possible in the final. Everybody in the team was just so important for the win here," Vollering continued, thanking her team for the effort that put her in a position to attack on the Kwaremont.

"I have dreamt of that moment so many times last night. I knew that the Kwaremont is the longest effort, that's what suits me the most. And it's in the end, so everybody feels the fatigue already. I knew that I just had to push without looking behind, and that's what I did until I finally turned off the cobbles, and then I realised I was alone," Vollering said.

How it unfolded

Starting and finishing in Oudenaarde, the women faced six flat cobblestone sections and nine climbs, seven of which were cobbled, on a 164.1km course snaking through the so-called Flemish Ardennes.

Two groups of four combined to form an eight-rider breakaway that included Anastasiya Kolesava (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto), Teuntje Beekhuis (Uno-X Mobility), Allison Mrugal (Mayenne Monbana MyPie), Sophie von Berswordt (VolkerWessels), Yurani Blanco (Human Powered Health), Ilken Seynave (Lotto-Intermarché), Caroline Wreszin (St Michel-Preference Home-Auber 93), and Yonna van Dam (Citymesh-Customm).

Their advantage ballooned out to over five minutes with 92km to go before slowly coming down again. Blanco and Seynave lost contact soon afterwards, while Van Dam and Mrugal were dropped on the cobbled Kerkgate, leaving four riders in front.

On the steep, cobbled Molenberg climb, 70km from the finish, an acceleration by Marlen Reusser (Movistar) split the peloton, with Reusser, Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek), Vollering, Backstedt, and Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) having a small gap at the top. Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) quickly closed that gap to make it a group of twelve, and the headwind contributed to the regrouping on the Marlboroughstraat that followed.

Kolesava dropped her last three companions on the Eikenberg, where Chabbey and Gery pushed hard in the peloton, and on the run-in to the Koppenberg, Kolesava was finally reeled in. Just before the climb, there was a big crash that took out Reusser and Kim Le Court-Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal), among others. Earlier crashes had already forced Victoire Berteau (Cofidis), Brodie Chapman (UAE Team ADQ), and several other riders to abandon.

Koch led the way up the Koppenberg, and at the top, only Vollering, Longo Borghini, Kopecky, Ferrand-Prévot, Pieterse, Letizia Paternoster (Liv AlUla Jayco), Backstedt, and Fleur Moors (Lidl-Trek) remained in her wheel. The next group caught back up on the main road before the Mariaborrestraat to form a group of 20 that also included Mischa Bredewold (SD Worx-Protime), Lieke Nooijen (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto), Noemi Rüegg (EF Education-Oatly), Chabbey, Gery, Millie Couzens (Fenix-Premier Tech), Balsamo, Shirin van Anrooij (Lidl-Trek), Pfeiffer Georgi (Picnic PostNL), Swinkels, and Silvia Persico (UAE Team ADQ).

Gery and Chabbey did most of the work for the next 12 kilometres to extend the gap to the groups behind. Georgi and Couzens lost contact on the Taaienberg, and on the Oude Kruisberg, Koch put on the pressure to set up Vollering’s attack on the Hotond.

After things came back together after the climb, Bredewold launched a short-lived attack on the descent towards the Oude Kwaremont, where Vollering went all-in from the start of the climb, and it quickly became clear that she would not be caught until the finish.

Pieterse passed Ferrand-Prévot on the Oude Kwaremont, and they set off behind Vollering together, followed by a group with three riders from UAE Team ADQ – Longo Borghini, Persico, and Swinkels – as well as Kopecky and Backstedt.

On the Paterberg, Vollering increased her advantage while Pieterse left Ferrand-Prévot behind, and Backstedt had to dig deep to stay in touch with the chasing group. Ferrand-Prévot made it back to Pieterse with 12km to go, but Vollering was 27 seconds up the road and out of their reach, finishing 42 seconds ahead. Instead, they worked together to hold off the group of five behind them, defending a 15-second gap that grew to 22 seconds at the finish.

Pieterse led out the sprint for second place from the 500-metre mark, and when she looked behind to gauge the gap to the chasers, Ferrand-Prévot used the moment to launch her sprint that a tired Pieterse could not reply to, settling for third place.

2026 Tour of Flanders Women results