Ferrand-Prévot seals Tour victory with stage win in yellow jersey after late attack, Vollering second in stage and overall

The day after the new yellow jersey wearer, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, made her move in the eighth stage to the top of the Col de la Madeleine, it was important for the Frenchwoman from Visma | Lease a Bike to get her leader's jersey safely across the finish line without any significant time losses. It was not an easy course, with two first-category climbs and a hors category climb halfway through: the Col de Joux Plane.

Right from the start of the final stage, there was plenty of action in the peloton. The first attack of the day came from green jersey wearer Lorena Wiebes, followed by a double attack from her teammates at SD Worx-Protime after Wiebes was caught again by the peloton. Femke Gerritse and Anna van der Breggen carried out the duo attack. The two Dutch women were joined by their Belgian teammate, world champion Lotte Kopecky. With Dutch rider Lucinda Brand (Lidl-Trek) also joining them, a quartet formed at the front.

Meanwhile, the yellow jersey wearer, Ferrand-Prévot, encountered difficulties. She and her team, Visma | Lease a Bike, fell behind on the descent. While FDJ-Suez, Demi Vollering's team, tried to increase the pace at the front, the Visma women had to close the gap. They eventually succeeded, just before the first climb of the day: Côte d'Arâches-la-Frasse (6.3km at 7.1%). Anna van der Breggen immediately attacked again on this first-category climb.

No one was able to keep up with the Dutch rider, so she decided to continue solo, with 95 kilometers to go. They built up a two-minute lead. In the valley, she picked up points for the points classification. Behind her, Wiebes did the same, which meant that the Mijdrecht rider would definitively win the secondary classification, provided she finished the race. While Van der Breggen was the first to turn onto the Col de Joux Plane (11.6 km at 8.5%), the peloton at the foot of the climb was disrupted by a crash. Number four in the classification, Katarzyna Niewiadoma (CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto), quickly got back on her bike and rejoined her rivals.

AG Insurance-Soudal set the pace from the foot of the Col de Joux Plane. Belgian champion Justine Ghekiere picked up the pace, followed by her teammate Sarah Gigante. Ferrand-Prévot seemed to be able to follow easily. For Paulina Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceuninck), among others, the pace was too fast. After Gigante's acceleration, the favorites for the GC settled into a rhythm.

A second attack by the number two in the GC came not much later. Gigante did so from behind, but saw her rivals react immediately. After her second attack, the Australian decided to stay in front to keep the pace up. In the final kilometers of the climb, Vollering decided to attack after her teammate Juliette Labous had taken the lead. Vollering added to that in the descent to drop Gigante.

This is how Vollering put Gigante under pressure. The Australian couldn't keep up and lost contact with the yellow jersey group. Van der Breggen's lead over that group, on the other hand, decreased to less than a minute. After the descent, Gigante also found herself trailing by the same number of seconds. In the yellow jersey group, Vollering and teammate Labous worked together with Niewiadoma. Ferrand-Prévot took turns from time to time, with Niamh Fisher-Black (Lidl-Trek) and Dominika Wlodarczyk (UAE-ADQ) also being asked to help out. Gigante fought alone against the six riders in front, but was unable to close the gap.

Van der Breggen's breakaway attempt ended 33 kilometers from the finish. The Vollering/Ferrand-Prévot group caught the SD Worx-Protime rider on the Col du Corbier (5.9km at 8.3%) and immediately gave up. Not much happened during this final climb of the Tour de France Femmes. At the top, Vollering was the first to take all the mountain points, after which the six riders began the descent. How far behind was Gigante? Almost two and a half minutes.

Wlodarczyk and Labous got into trouble briefly on the descent, but the duo managed to get back to the group at the front. There was one more hurdle in the last ten kilometers: the uncategorized Châtel (1.4km at 7%). For a long time, nothing seemed to happen here either, but after Labous had done her job for Vollering, the Dutch rider attacked herself. However, it was not a decisive breakaway, as the rest of the group was able to get on her wheel immediately.

Ferrand-Prévot decided to give it one last shot in this Tour and exploded away in the final hundreds of meters of the climb. No one could follow, and the home rider immediately opened up a 20-second gap. Behind her, Vollering, Niewiadoma, and Fisher-Black came together, but the trio couldn't get any closer. Ferrand-Prévot thus won the stage solo, with Vollering crossing the finish line in second place.