Lorena Wiebes claimed her second stage victory in the 2025 Tour de France Femmes on Tuesday, sprinting to victory on the Avenue John Kennedy in Poitiers. The Dutch rider, representing Team SD Worx-Protime, once again outpaced her compatriot Marianne Vos in an uphill finish.
Wiebes, who also won Milan-San Remo and the points classification at the Giro d’Italia this year, described 2025 as her “best season to date”. She has now won five Giro stages between 2021 and 2025. “I have tried to have more of a free mindset, like I had in the Giro,” she said. “This season has already been really good, even if I hadn’t won in the Tour de France. It doesn’t feel like we have a lot of pressure from the team.”
While Wiebes celebrated, pre-race favourite Demi Vollering expressed relief at finishing the stage after a heavy crash near the end of stage three. Vollering, winner of the 2023 Tour, finished in the main group despite visible pain during her pre-race warm-up. “It was a big relief to feel good and that I was able to ride and to keep my head up,” she said. “That’s the biggest relief. From now on we will see, day by day. I was a bit anxious for the final because it was kind of similar to yesterday, so you feel tension. A crash like that takes its toll on you. Again, no time loss, and now I think the shock is over.”
Vollering admitted she rode at the front of the peloton “mostly to stay safe”, adding, “It’s better to spend energy in the front of the peloton than be behind. My team did a very good job with keeping me in front of the bunch. When I was a bit anxious they were always next to me.” The Dutch rider, whose €1m transfer to FDJ-Suez was built around winning this year’s Tour, blamed rivals for not honouring the tradition of waiting for the race leader after her crash. However, her team manager Stephen Delcourt’s comments about a lack of respect drew criticism from rival teams. Jos van Emden, team director at Visma-Lease a Bike, called Delcourt’s remarks “ridiculous”, suggesting he wanted “a peloton of eight riders, with Demi in it, to ride in a gilded cage”.
This was Vollering’s second high-speed crash in the Tour, following a similar fall last year while wearing the yellow jersey. “When I was on the ground I had some throwback of last year,” she said, “but luckily this time it was in the five-kilometre rule [meaning she did not lose any time].” With her FDJ-Suez team around her, Vollering hopes to recover from what she described as a “hard impact” ahead of Wednesday’s longest stage, which includes three categorised climbs in the final 35km.
