Tour de France Femmes, Elisa Longo Borghini Almost in Tears: “I’m speechless”

On the day Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) was crowned the winner of the 2026 Tour de France Femmes, there was also glory for the Italian team: Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team L’Imad) brought her tricolor jersey to the podium in Nice, the site of the final stage of the women’s Tour de France. The Italian champion finished seventh on the French Riviera, gaining a spot in the general classification at the expense of the unfortunate Marlen Reusser (Movistar Team), who was the victim of a crash and finished more than 25 minutes behind.

The podium thus featured Dutch rider Demi Vollering (already the winner of the 2026 Giro) in the yellow jersey, ahead of Poland’s Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), 1’18” behind, and Longo Borghini, third at 4’19”. Although there were no stage victories for the Italian cyclists, there is still immense satisfaction for Longo Borghini, a two-time winner of the Giro d’Italia (2024 and 2025) but who had never stood on the podium at the Grande Boucle.

““I’m speechless; I didn’t think I’d make it onto the podium after Stage 5 and the time trial,” said Elisa Longo Borghini after the finish, nearly in tears. “Celebrate on the beach? I’d much rather go home and sleep for a week, because the last few days have been incredibly tough. I kept waking up at 3 a.m., thinking about the time trial, about the stage that went wrong… I even got a flat tire in the final stretch today—it certainly wouldn’t have been complete without a little thrills.”

Elisa Longo Borghini also finished seventh in the points classification, won by Dutch rider Lorena Wiebes (Team SD Worx-Protime), while she finished sixth in the classification for the polka-dot jersey as best climber, which also went to a Dutch rider, Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Premier Tech). As for the white jersey, the top Italian was Carlotta Cipressi (Human Powered Health), who finished 17th, 2h03’22” behind the winner, Germany’s Antonia Niedermayer (Canyon-Sram).