The Best Climbing Performance in Women's History | Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift 2026 Stage 7

For a limited time you can save hundreds on your favorite Wahoo products. Upgrade your setup with gear proven in the Pro Peloton, including some of the big players on Ventoux today. Visit wahoofitness.com to use the offer before it ends. Absolute scenes in the Tour de France Final Mavericks with today, the race that keeps delivering. We have the Ventoux Queen stage, the full Monty, up 20kms from the Bedouins, 15.5kms from Saint-Esteve, at about 9% strong cross headwind from Charlie Renard though, so it's very steep for the first 9kms, then it levels off a bit. In the Peloton we have the expected teams controlling Movistar for the yellow leaders jersey of Marlon Roycer, FDJ and of course Canyon SRAM. There was a breakaway but actually no big GC teams or like climbers who've fallen out of GC really made it into that break. So we have the positioning fight from Bedouin, it is like 3-4% up there but here is where the climb, the categorised climb at least, starts from. Saint-Esteve, Le Mans-Ventoux, Kim Lecour, Pienaar drop from the bottom, Geri's pacing, Pauline Ferrand, Prevot, she is dropped. The winner on Madeleine which was the Queen stage last year, Valliers attack, sees Geri's in the wheel, thinks she's sort of pacing all the Pelotons with her but they weren't, Geri goes back, she's pacing with Bertay and they've got a long way to go up to the tower at the top of Mont Ventoux at 1,900m but it's actually EF Education-Oatley with Rook, they start to pace, good climbers like Fischer-Black, Bounel are dropped and also the last domestique of Demi Vollering. Bear in mind Vollering was 12 seconds, just 12 seconds behind Roycer in the yellow jersey before this stage. Nivea Deimer, her teammate Niedermaar starts to pace in the white jersey but before long, it's only for a minute or so, Demi attacks the long way around on this hairpin whilst Niedermaar was setting the tempo. We've still got quite a few k's to go until we get to Chalet-Renard where the sort of profile or characteristics of this climb changes significantly, then it's less steep, more headwind, I would argue better for Demi and Roycer but the UAE riders, Vlodacic and Eaubier drop and it's the trio we've seen all race when the going gets tough. Vollering in the European Champs jersey, Nivea Deimer and Marlon Roycer defending well, looking pretty comfortable but obviously everyone's having to work here in the yellow jersey. Nivea Deimer though, she's in the Simon Yates-Vinestra position of last year's Giro d'Italia Queen's Stage. She's in third, she's a minute and five behind Demi, she's a minute 17 behind Roycer, gives Demi the now you see me, now you don't attacks just as Demi looks back and she's gone and Demi's like well Roycer, you're in the yellow jersey, you chased third place but Roycer's like well she's closer to you on GC and Roycer's obviously very or acutely aware that Vollering is going to counter-attack her. Vollering literally just attacked, so Roycer's on the radio, she's like what do I do just after that when she gets off the radio, Vollering attacks her trying to get across to Nivea Deimer. The gap was about 15 seconds, this looks more like 10 seconds to me, it gets much less than that. Vollering trying to attack across the gap, maybe get to Nivea Deimer, start working with her. Unlike the Finestra stage last year, Roycer keeps pacing, she doesn't refuse to work, she paces but she has to be careful. She's just got attacked from Vollering, this is the second time and she gets attacked a third time from behind, so obviously she doesn't want to ride threshold. The gap here goes down to five seconds, they could almost reach out across to Nivea Deimer's back wheel but they don't get there and here the elastic snaps. Roycer has to start pacing, Vollering's attacked three times and has to recover and the gap goes quickly to 30, 40, 50 seconds and is Nivea Deimer, are they going to allow her to go into the virtual maillot jaune but here the climb changes, as I said they turn left, here's Chalet-Renard and now it's the open section, really exposed to the wind after the forest. You'd think the two bigger riders with more power working together, they should be able to take time back on the pure climb and Nivea Deimer, we have the group with Blasi and Longa Borghini working really well, they come 18 seconds to that group of the maillot jaune but they keep losing time. Nivea Deimer goes into the virtual yellow jersey here, her gap goes to 120, Demi looks like she's under pressure, the gap goes, it just keeps expanding, three and a half k's to go when you would think with the wind, with the exposed terrain, look at the flags here just ahead of Roycer, like it is blowing an absolute gale, these two, well they are working together although Roycer is trying to sort of put Vollering in the gutter and the group behind was almost coming back to them, they were within 10 seconds then Vollering starts to push but it just stays, it's 140, 145, 150 with 1k to go, Nivea Deimer is looking like she's wrapping up GC here completely, they're not going to take 30 seconds, 40 seconds back on her in the later stages, 200 meters to go, it's 150, then Vollering launches, drops Roycer in the crosswind, Nivea Deimer wins her first ever stage at this race, remember she didn't win a stage when she won the GC overall a couple of years ago, a historic performance, one of the best women's climbing performances in history, that's what it took to take the yellow jersey but Demi wasn't giving up without a fight, probably she should have left Roycer a bit earlier, then maybe she's almost in yellow, she cuts the gap by 30 seconds in 700 meters, ELB comes back to Roycer who loses 1 minute 46, crazy stage, Kasia who was in third countering, winning the stage, going into, we'll see, is she in the yellow jersey by a narrow margin, Vollering gambling maybe a bit too much, here's what the Polish star had to say, I just feel so much gratitude and I don't know, I just, you know, this victory goes to so many people that were with me along this very long road without like proper big wind so I just feel like I want to say thank you to almost everyone but yeah, I don't know, honestly I'm just so tired and so blown away with what just happened and actually it was so funny because as we started to climb the monument too, I looked right and I saw my parents, like they made a surprise visit and I could see my dad crying and I was like I just need to make them proud, you know and yeah, so this victory just goes to my family, to my friends, to my team, to my husband Taylor, to my coach Louis because especially, yeah and also my team boss Ronnie because they know how much effort I put into this victory and they were always by my side and listening to my complaints so it's a long speech right now but yeah, I'm just blown away. Until today you were the only Tour de France winner with no stage victory, how much did you want to fix it? I think I was not, I never really like chased the victory for the sake of winning, I chased it for the sake of this beautiful feeling and I came here to Mont Ventoux with my friends, with my husband and we rode the climb three times, we had fun, we sprinted, we did efforts and it was just about this amazing feeling from being around here, it felt feels like at the top of the mountain and from that moment I just wanted to have that feeling coming here as well, this like pure pure joy of riding, feeling like a kid, you know, feeling like bike racing, riding is so cool In terms of GC, Nivea Doma Finney has a 15 second lead ahead of Vollering, we only have bonus seconds available at the two stage finishes coming up and she's not looked like, no one's been able to drop her, Vollering's not been putting her really under much pressure on the punchy finishes either or the short climbs so Nivea Doma Finney in the driver's seat but this race ain't over, Royce is only on 40 seconds, hope you enjoyed the video, I'll see you with a recap tomorrow, ciao ciao!