Demi Vollering stormed to victory on an electric stage 5 of the 2026 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift in Belleville-en-Beaujolais on Wednesday.The FDJ United-Suez rider won from an elite group of three, pipping yellow jersey Marlen Reusser (Movistar) and Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney (Canyon-SRAM) on the line. The trio now look set to contest for overall victory at the race, after they put time into all their other general classification rivals. Reusser still leads the race, but her gap to Vollering has shortened to just 12 seconds, with four stages to come.The trio escaped from the rest of the favourites on the final two climbs of the day, the Col de Durbize and Mont Bruilly, with the latter proving especially decisive in deciding the direction of the stage win, and probably the outcome of the whole race.Pauline Ferrand-Prvot (Visma-Lease a Bike) once again lost time, well over two minutes, which might mean her defence of the yellow jersey is now over. She was distanced on the Durbize, along with Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx-Protime), as FDJ put the pressure on.On Mont Bruilly, Vollering repeatedly tried to escape, but every move was matched by Reusser, who took yellow on stage four's time trial; Niewiadoma then put in a dig, but the elastic did not snap. However, those three were then alone, and worked hard to ensure the maximum time possible was put into their rivals.In the finale, Reusser led the three in, and Niewiadoma launched a surprise early sprint, aimed at catching her rivals out. Vollering, however, had the power to close the gap just in time for the line, with Reusser following in in second."Today, it was a really cool race," Vollering said on TV post-race. "The whole team, every single rider of the team, was part of it, and I enjoy those victories the most, when everybody puts their hard work into it, it's all the more special and beautiful, because you do it all together. The way how I managed to win the sprint, I thought I wasn't going to make it anymore and I somehow made it. It was a relief after the finish line."I knew Kasia would go early, because she always does, and I knew Marlen would gamble, so I let her gamble a bit. To try and make her work. She didn't, and I was like OK, if I don't do anything, Kasia is going to win. I just have to try, and maybe Marlen will come over me but at least I tried. I just gave it my everything until the line, it was a very long sprint, and I needed every single metre on the finish straight. I managed to do it, so I'm very happy about it."For her [Reusser], it looks very bright now. The only good thing is that I won the Tour already, Kasia as well, Marlen is the one who never managed to win it yet, so she'll have to work for it. I'm sure it will be a hard battle, because she is not a rider who you can beat easily because she is very strong. I will try everything to do that."(Image credit: Getty Images)