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Demi Vollering won the women’s Tour de France for the first time Sunday while her teammate Marlen Reusser of Switzerland clinched the final-stage time trial.
Although the 26-year-old Vollering was already in a strong position after a dominant win in Saturday’s penultimate stage up to Tourmalet in the Pyrenees, she still had enough energy left to finish 10 seconds behind Reusser in the time trial held in the southwestern city of Pau.
The overall victory completed a challenging Tour for the Dutch rider. In Stage 5, Vollering received a 20-second penalty for riding in the slipstream of her SD Worx team director Danny Stam’s car, with Stam later being banned for “dangerous” overtaking and making “inappropriate comments.”
Despite the setback, Vollering entered the finale with a sizeable 1-minute, 50-second advantage.
“I think I still, again, cannot believe it,” said Vollering, who has endured several narrow misses in recent years, twice finishing runner-up in La Vuelta Femenina and third in the 2021 Giro Donne. “Of course, I worked hard, but it’s just not only working hard, it’s believing in it. You have a dream and you work really hard for it, but also you need to keep yourself a bit calm and find a good balance in your life.”
Team SD Worx completed a stage treble with Lotte Kopecky of Belgium finishing in third place. Kopecky was 38 seconds behind Reusser, who covered the 14 miles in 29:15.
Kopecky’s performance moved her up two spots to second place overall in the general classification, 3:03 behind Vollering, with Kasia Niewiadoma of Poland dropping to third overall.
Niewiadoma was also 3:03 behind Vollering, but Kopecky edged her out in the standings because of time splits recorded in the time trial, organizers said.
Annemiek van Vleuten, last year’s Tour winner, was fourth this year, finishing 3:59 behind Vollering.
Niewiadoma won the best climber’s polka-dot jersey while Kopecky collected the green jersey for best sprinter.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.