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Tour de France Femmes stage 8 report: Reusser tops SD Worx 1-2-3 as Vollering wins overall

Demi Vollering wraps up overall victory of the Tour de France Femmes with second on the final stage behind her teammate.

Marlen Reusser (SD Worx) on her way to stage 8 ITT victory at the 2023 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. Photo: © Cor Vos

Kit Nicholson
by Kit Nicholson 30.07.2023 Photography by
Cor Vos
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The 2023 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift took a bow with a 22.6 km individual time trial in Pau. The stage was won by European ITT champion Marlen Reusser in an SD Worx 1-2-3, with Demi Vollering and Lotte Kopecky joining the Swiss star on the stage podium.

With Vollering winning overall, the team also secured the top two steps of the GC podium as Kopecky flew through the course to overhaul not just Annemiek van Vleuten, but also edging ahead of Kasia Niewiadoma who earned a much-deserved third-place finish for the second year in a row.

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Kopecky and Vollering, third and second on the stage, and second and first overall, pose with their special-edition bikes.

Quotes of the day

The words ‘I’m speechless’ are often heard from the mouths of athletes, invariably before they find a stream of words to describe, often quite eloquently, how happy they are. Though Vollering was eventually able to find the words, her hesitance in front of the mic would have earned this clichéd sentiment, and why not? She’d just won the Tour de France Femmes.

“I think I still cannot believe it,” Vollering said after wrapping up overall victory.

“Of course, I worked hard, but it’s just not only working hard, it’s believing in it,” she continued when asked about her long-term preparation. “I don’t know, it’s so much together and in the end, you have a dream and you work really hard for it but you need to keep yourself a bit calm. You need to find good balance in your life also: how to do it, to keep it going and find a relaxed way to do all this.

“I think this year I feel really comfortable and good in what I’m doing. Together with [coach and DS] Anna van der Breggen – she makes my trainings – I feel like everything comes together and, yeah, it’s just an amazing season for me.”

After a confident performance on Saturday’s queen stage, Vollering was surprised by how she felt before the final day’s TT.

“Actually I was super relaxed this morning and that made me a bit nervous because I was so relaxed I was like ‘oh, I need to wake up’ because you also need to have those nerves for a time trial because otherwise it’s not good. In the end, if you have those nerves you can really dig deep also, it makes you sharp, so this morning I was at first really relaxed and then I got a bit nervous that I was so relaxed and then the nerves came a bit and it was all good in the end.”

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