Tour Femmes 2025: Phenomenal Ferrand-Prévot strikes double blow on Madeleine, Vollering and co blown away

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot dominated to win the queen stage of the Tour de France Femmes. The French rider from Visma | Lease a Bike proved by far the strongest on the Col de la Madeleine and took over the yellow jersey from Kim Le Court. Demi Vollering, considered one of the top favorites beforehand, had to drop early and, like the other favorites, took a huge blow.

the eighth stage kicked off with climbing from the start. The riders were immediately sent up the Col de Plainpalais (13.3 km at 6.4%). After that, the route wound up and down through the Alps, with the Côte de Saint-Georges-d'Hurtières (5.1 km at 5.4%) as an interlude. This was an ideal warm-up for the final climb: the feared Col de la Madeleine, an Alpine giant 18.6 kilometers long with an average gradient of 8.1%.

On the Col de Plainpalais, Riejanne Markus was the first attacker, but the Dutch rider from Lidl-Trek found no space. Subsequent attacks also went unrewarded. When the very active Markus went again, she did manage to open a gap. She was joined by Usoa Ostolaza, but the Laboral Kutxa - Fundación Euskadi rider soon had to fall back. However, it didn’t calm down behind Markus. Several riders tried to bridge across, and even yellow jersey holder Kim Le Court jumped along briefly, although she soon dropped back to the other favorites.

Large breakaway group
A bunch of other riders managed to join Markus. With four kilometers to go to the summit, there was a lead group of thirteen riders, namely: Markus herself, her teammate Niamh Fisher-Black (Lidl-Trek), Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Deceuninck), Mareille Meijering (Movistar), Justine Ghekiere (AG Insurance-Soudal), Lotte Claes (Arkéa-B&B Hotels), Marion Bunel (Visma | Lease a Bike), Franziska Koch (Picnic PostNL), Magdeleine Vallieres (EF Education-Oatly), Ruth Edwards (Human Powered Health), Ane Santesteban (Laboral Kutxa – Fundación Euskadi), polka-dot jersey holder Elise Chabbey and Évita Muzic, both teammates of Demi Vollering at FDJ-SUEZ.

In the already thinned peloton, AG Insurance-Soudal led the pace, but Maeva Squiban wasn’t satisfied with how slow it was going. The two-time stage winner attacked and rode up to the breakaway group in one go. Squiban then crossed the Col de Plainpalais second, behind Chabbey.

Crash of Le Court
At that moment, the attackers had a half-minute lead on the peloton, but after the descent, they quickly extended their advantage. The group behind the yellow jersey had come to a complete halt. The breakaway gained nearly four minutes, making Muzic the virtual leader by a wide margin. The Frenchwoman had started the stage in ninth place, one minute and 35 seconds behind Le Court. With 75 kilometers to go, Canyon//SRAM began working for Kasia Niewiadoma. Later, Visma | Lease a Bike and again AG Insurance-Soudal also stepped up to help.

Squiban, Koch and Claes provide a brief interlude - photo: Cor Vos

Up front, there was some unrest as Squiban - yes, her again - rode away with Koch and Claes. But order was quickly restored. We seemed to enter a calmer phase toward the final climb, but then yellow jersey holder Kimberley Le Court crashed on a descent. The Mauritian rider was leading the descent but misjudged a corner. She missed the turn and tumbled forward. She continued soon after but was already nearly a minute behind.

Muzic starts the Madeleine with a lead
FDJ-SUEZ initially kept pushing, possibly also because Le Court’s teammate Sarah Gigante had been dropped on the descent. Eventually, Vollering’s teammates stopped pushing, and things calmed down again. Le Court was then able to return to the group of favorites with a large group after Gigante had already come back earlier. At this point, just under fifty kilometers remained. The gap with the breakaway still stood at three and a half minutes, and on the Côte de Saint-Georges-d'Hurtières, the gap even grew beyond four minutes.

As they approached the Col de la Madeleine, the pace increased again. The lead shrank to two minutes. The high speed toward the foot of the climb was bad news for Nienke Vinke, who suffered mechanical trouble, had to switch bikes, and would not come back. A stroke of luck for the white jersey holder: Julie Bego, her direct rival for the young rider classification, was in the same group.

Van der Breggen drops early, Vollering also fades
On the Madeleine, Fenix-Deceuninck initially set the pace, but soon yellow jersey holder Le Court took the front. She was working for Gigante. Still, the thinning group of favorites didn’t close the gap quickly to the leaders, where the wheat was separated from the chaff. The pace up front was too high for riders like Squiban, and Chabbey also disappeared from the front. The Swiss rider dropped back to work for Demi Vollering. Just as Chabbey took the lead of the favorites group, Anna van der Breggen was the first top favorite to fall off. After about four kilometers climbing, the pace was too much for the SD Worx-Protime leader.

Were we witnessing a three-way battle Ferrand-Prévot versus Vollering versus Gigante? - photo: Cor Vos

Up front, initially four riders remained—Muzic, Vallieres, Kastelijn, and Fisher-Black. The last of these launched at thirteen kilometers to go. Only Kastelijn could follow, leaving two leaders. Not long after, there was also an acceleration among the favorites: Gigante pushed hard. At first only Rooijakkers could go with her, but soon Ferrand-Prévot also made the jump. Niewiadoma was lurking behind, but Vollering lost significant ground. Gigante also still had the dropped Ghekiere with her. The Belgian champion worked at the front for her Australian leader, after which it became too hard for Rooijakkers. It looked like a duel was shaping up between Gigante and Ferrand-Prévot.

Ferrand-Prévot is in a league of her own
Once Ghekiere was spent, Gigante set the pace. This lasted until they reached Bunel, a forward scout for Ferrand-Prévot. The young Visma | Lease a Bike rider set the pace briefly for her experienced leader, but Ferrand-Prévot could push even harder. She took over, increased the tempo, and rode Gigante right out of her slipstream. In no time, she closed the gap to Kastelijn and Fisher-Black and immediately took the lead. Then Kastelijn and Fisher-Black were dropped one after the other. Ferrand-Prévot was away. She would win the stage by a large margin and thus— with only one stage remaining—take a commanding lead in the overall victory.

Ferrand-Prévot on her way to victory - photo: Cor Vos

Behind Ferrand-Prévot, Gigante was the best of the rest. She limited the damage to just over a minute and a half. The loss for Vollering was much greater but still came ahead of Niewiadoma and Rooijakkers. In fact, in the final kilometer, she managed to drop them, so despite her defeat, she did well for her place on the Tour podium. She finished fourth in the stage behind Fisher-Black, about three minutes behind Ferrand-Prévot.