GC and jerseys after Tour de France Femmes 2026 Stage 6

Marlen Reusser will carry the yellow jersey onto Mont Ventoux after surviving an aggressive Stage 6 of the Tour de France Femmes without losing time to Demi Vollering or Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney.

Kim Le Court-Pienaar won the stage in Tournon-sur-Rhône from an eight-rider move, with the successful late attack also reshaping the general classification immediately behind the podium. Elisa Longo Borghini was the biggest beneficiary, gaining 28 seconds on the main GC group and climbing to fourth overall.

Reusser, Vollering and Niewiadoma-Phinney all finished together 28 seconds behind Le Court-Pienaar. That leaves the top three unchanged before Friday’s queen stage, with just 12 seconds separating Reusser and Vollering and Niewiadoma-Phinney 1:17 from yellow.

Puck Pieterse strengthened her grip on the polka-dot jersey, Lorena Wiebes continues to lead the points classification and Antonia Niedermaier remains in white.

The purpose and scoring of all four competitions are covered in our Tour de France Femmes 2026 jerseys guide.

General classification after Stage 6

Position	Rider	Team	Time/gap
1	Marlen Reusser	Movistar	19:43:34
2	Demi Vollering	FDJ United-Suez	+0:12
3	Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney	Canyon SRAM	+1:17
4	Elisa Longo Borghini	UAE Team L’IMAD	+2:28
5	Antonia Niedermaier	Canyon SRAM	+2:40
6	Dominika Włodarczyk	UAE Team L’IMAD	+2:54
7	Isabella Holmgren	Lidl-Trek	+3:05
8	Cédrine Kerbaol	EF Education-Oatly	+3:07
9	Kim Le Court-Pienaar	AG Insurance-Soudal	+3:26
10	Paula Blasi	UAE Team L’IMAD	+3:51

Stage 6 changed the order immediately behind the podium far more than it altered the battle for yellow.

Longo Borghini gained the most from the decisive late move. She began the day sixth at 2:58 and finished with the successful front group, gaining 30 seconds in the general classification once the stage timings were applied.

That moved her into fourth overall at 2:28, only 1:11 behind Niewiadoma-Phinney and 12 seconds ahead of Niedermaier.

The Italian has therefore moved back into genuine podium contention immediately before the race reaches the terrain best suited to her.

The wider pre-race hierarchy, including Longo Borghini’s suitability for the mountain stages, is covered in our Tour de France Femmes riders to watch guide.

Reusser and Vollering take the same 12-second gap onto Ventoux

For Reusser, Stage 6 was ultimately a successful exercise in control.

She did not need to win the stage or chase every attack. The central objective was avoiding a costly split involving Vollering or Niewiadoma-Phinney and arriving at Mont Ventoux still in yellow.

That objective was achieved.

Vollering remained alongside Reusser in the reduced GC group throughout the decisive final section, while Niewiadoma-Phinney also finished on the same time. The three riders therefore take exactly the same gaps into Stage 7 that they held after the Beaujolais stage.

The difference is that there is now nowhere left to postpone the climbing argument.

Reusser leads Vollering by 12 seconds. On Mont Ventoux, that is effectively nothing. The summit finish carries bonus seconds as well as the possibility of much larger physical gaps.

Vollering could therefore take yellow without needing a huge attack. Reusser simply cannot afford a significant weakness on the 15.7-kilometre climb.

The importance of those seconds is explained in our Tour de France Femmes time bonuses guide.

Longo Borghini transforms the podium battle

Longo Borghini’s move was the most significant GC development of Stage 6.

She made the decisive selection during the final part of the stage and then contributed heavily to keeping the group clear as the yellow jersey contenders organised behind.

Her presence complicated the chase.

At the start of the day, Longo Borghini was almost three minutes behind Reusser and 1:41 behind Niewiadoma-Phinney. She was far enough down that Movistar did not need to commit everything to bringing her back, but close enough that Canyon SRAM could not simply ignore the move.

Longo Borghini kept driving.

The gain puts her fourth at 2:28 and only 1:11 from the podium.

Mont Ventoux now gives her an obvious target. Taking yellow would require an extraordinary ride, but third place is firmly within reach. A podium that looked increasingly distant after Stage 5 is suddenly realistic again.

UAE Team L’IMAD also retain three riders inside the top 10, giving Longo Borghini more tactical support than most of her direct rivals.

Niedermaier slips to fifth but keeps white

Niedermaier lost one place overall despite finishing alongside Reusser, Vollering and Niewiadoma-Phinney.

Longo Borghini’s gain pushed the Canyon SRAM rider from fourth to fifth, but Niedermaier remains only 12 seconds behind the Italian and continues to lead the youth classification.

The white jersey standings remain tight:

Position	Rider	Team	Gap
1	Antonia Niedermaier	Canyon SRAM	19:46:14
2	Isabella Holmgren	Lidl-Trek	+0:25
3	Paula Blasi	UAE Team L’IMAD	+1:11
4	Nienke Vinke	SD Worx-Protime	+1:14
5	Célia Gery	FDJ United-Suez	+7:20

Niedermaier leads Holmgren by only 25 seconds, exactly as she did after Stage 5.

Holmgren remains seventh overall at 3:05 and increasingly looks like a genuine GC rider rather than someone simply protecting a strong position in the youth classification.

Blasi is 1:11 behind Niedermaier in white, while Vinke sits only three seconds further back.

Mont Ventoux should create considerably larger gaps between these riders than anything seen so far. Niedermaier remains the favourite, but 25 seconds is nowhere near enough to defend passively.

Her combination of climbing and time trialling was already one of the reasons she featured so prominently in our Tour de France Femmes time-trial contenders guide.

Kerbaol jumps back towards the front

Cédrine Kerbaol was another important beneficiary of the Stage 6 attack.

The EF Education-Oatly rider moved back up to eighth overall at 3:07, placing her only two seconds behind Holmgren and 13 seconds behind Włodarczyk.

That recovery matters because Stage 5 had pushed Kerbaol sharply backwards after she began the day third overall.

Stage 6 did not restore all of that lost ground, but it stopped the decline and returned her to the centre of the top-10 battle.

The challenge is whether she can reproduce that level on Mont Ventoux. Kerbaol is strong across difficult and technical terrain, but the sustained gradients above Bédoin create a very different test.

Le Court-Pienaar turns a stage win into ninth overall

Le Court-Pienaar’s victory carried consequences beyond the stage result.

She began the day outside the top 10 and gained enough time through the successful move to climb to ninth overall at 3:26.

The Mauritian is now only 19 seconds behind Kerbaol and 39 seconds behind Holmgren.

That gives her another GC objective alongside the stage victory already secured. The difficulty is that her strengths are better suited to rolling, selective racing than an hour-long mountain ascent.

Her Stage 6 victory nevertheless reinforces why she was included among the major stage hunters before the race in our Tour de France Femmes breakaway specialists guide.

Ferrand-Prévot gains places without gaining time

Pauline Ferrand-Prévot finished in the Reusser group and therefore lost no further time to the yellow jersey on Stage 6.

She nevertheless gained places as other riders around her slipped backwards.

Her deficit remains five minutes, leaving the broader assessment unchanged. Ferrand-Prévot is too far behind for a conventional GC recovery but close enough that the leading teams cannot automatically give her unlimited freedom.

Mont Ventoux gives her the first obvious opportunity to transform the remainder of her Tour.

If she cannot follow the best climbers there, any remaining argument about defending her 2025 title disappears. If she suddenly returns to the climbing level she showed last season, she can still target one of the most prestigious stage victories of the race and begin moving back towards the top 10.

Team Visma | Lease a Bike also lost an alternative GC card when Femke de Vries fell to 5:50 overall. That makes an aggressive Ferrand-Prévot strategy increasingly logical.

Points classification: Wiebes remains comfortably in green

Position	Rider	Points
1	Lorena Wiebes	144
2	Lotte Kopecky	85
3	Noemi Rüegg	84
4	Kim Le Court-Pienaar	82
5	Demi Vollering	65
6	Puck Pieterse	62
7	Cédrine Kerbaol	60
8	Sigrid Ytterhus Haugset	55
9	Marlen Reusser	54
10	Dominika Włodarczyk	49

Wiebes retains a commanding lead in the points classification.

Her total of 144 points gives her a 59-point advantage over teammate Kopecky and 60 over Rüegg.

Le Court-Pienaar’s stage victory moved her to fourth on 82 points, while Pieterse and Kerbaol also gained through their high finishes.

Wiebes remains overwhelmingly favoured to take green to Nice. The mountain stages provide relatively little opportunity for a pure sprinter to add heavily to her total, but the advantage she has already accumulated means her rivals need more than consistent scoring.

The points system and the difference between green and the other classification jerseys are explained in the Tour de France Femmes jerseys guide.

Mountains classification: Pieterse strengthens her advantage again

Position	Rider	Points
1	Puck Pieterse	47
2	Nikola Nosková	21
3	Sigrid Ytterhus Haugset	11
4	Maëva Squiban	9
5	Océane Mahé	8
6	Demi Vollering	7
7	Anouska Koster	7
8	Sara Casasola	7
9	Liane Lippert	7
10	Ema Comte	6

Pieterse continues to build what is becoming a substantial mountains classification lead.

She now has 47 points, more than double the 21 held by Nosková.

Mont Ventoux is the major complication.

The hors catégorie finish awards 15 points to the first rider over the summit, with points available down to eighth place. A GC contender can therefore move rapidly up the classification even without having deliberately targeted the polka-dot jersey earlier in the Tour.

Pieterse should still have the opportunity to collect on the preceding climbs during Stage 7. If she can score heavily before Ventoux, she can make the jersey increasingly difficult to take even if Vollering or another GC rider collects the maximum at the finish.

The full mountains points scale, including the Ventoux allocation, is set out in our Tour de France Femmes jerseys explainer.

UAE Team L’IMAD strengthen their team classification position

Position	Team	Gap
1	UAE Team L’IMAD	59:19:32
2	Lidl-Trek	+1:59
3	FDJ United-Suez	+6:54
4	Team Visma	Lease a Bike
5	EF Education-Oatly	+12:03
6	SD Worx-Protime	+14:27
7	Canyon SRAM	+18:57
8	Movistar	+38:16
9	Fenix-Premier Tech	+40:21
10	AG Insurance-Soudal	+41:00

UAE Team L’IMAD remain firmly in control of the team classification.

Longo Borghini’s move was particularly valuable because it improved both her individual GC position and UAE’s collective standing.

The team now have Longo Borghini fourth, Włodarczyk sixth and Blasi tenth overall.

That depth gives UAE more options than any other squad heading onto Ventoux. Longo Borghini is the clearest podium candidate, but Włodarczyk and Blasi remain close enough overall to force rival teams to consider several riders rather than one leader.

The question on Stage 7 is whether that numerical strength can be converted into something more significant than the team classification.

Jersey holders after Stage 6

• Yellow jersey: Marlen Reusser, Movistar
• Green jersey: Lorena Wiebes, SD Worx-Protime
• Polka-dot jersey: Puck Pieterse, Fenix-Premier Tech
• White jersey: Antonia Niedermaier, Canyon SRAM
• Team classification: UAE Team L’IMAD

Stage 6 changed the supporting cast without changing the central Tour battle.

Reusser remains 12 seconds ahead of Vollering. Niewiadoma-Phinney remains third. Longo Borghini has moved sharply back towards the podium, Niedermaier and Holmgren remain locked together in the white jersey contest, and Le Court-Pienaar has converted a stage win into a top-10 GC position.

Friday removes the ambiguity.

The complete 2026 Tour de France Femmes route has always placed Mont Ventoux at the centre of the yellow jersey battle. Reusser takes the race lead onto the mountain, but Vollering only needs one sustained acceleration to take it away.