Vollering Confirms No Paris-Roubaix: 'Tour de France Will Always Be My Biggest Goal'
Less than 48 hours after producing one of the most devastating solo victories in Tour of Flanders history, Demi Vollering has confirmed that Paris-Roubaix Femmes is not on her 2026 calendar. The Dutchwoman, who attacked on the Oude Kwaremont with 18 kilometres remaining on Sunday to win by 42 seconds, says the choice between Roubaix and the Ardennes is one she has weighed carefully — and that the Ardennes, and ultimately the Tour de France Femmes, win every time.
"I always have to choose between Paris-Roubaix or the Ardennes, and in the end, I always choose the Ardennes," Vollering told reporters on Monday. "The Tour de France will always be my biggest goal. I would like to do Roubaix one day, but this year is not the year." It is a statement that will disappoint fans who saw her Flanders performance as evidence that the 29-year-old could dominate on any terrain, but it reflects a ruthless clarity of purpose that has defined her 2026 campaign.
Vollering's spring has been nothing short of extraordinary. After opening her Classics season with a string of strong results, she arrived at Flanders as one of several co-favourites alongside Lotte Kopecky and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot. What happened on the Kwaremont removed any ambiguity about the hierarchy. Vollering's acceleration on the famous cobbled climb was so violent that Ferrand-Prévot, arguably the best all-terrain racer in women's cycling, could only watch her disappear up the road. Puck Pieterse took third after a brilliant Paterberg effort, but Vollering was already long gone.
Her FDJ-Suez team executed flawlessly, with German champion Franziska Koch emerging as one of the signings of the season for her crucial domestique work in the final 50 kilometres. The team's cohesion has been a revelation — a far cry from the fractured dynamics that sometimes hampered Vollering's campaigns at SD Worx. Under the French squad's banner, she appears liberated, confident, and racing with a tactical maturity that makes her dangerous in every scenario.
The Ardennes Classics are now squarely in Vollering's sights. La Flèche Wallonne on April 22 and Liège-Bastogne-Liège on April 26 are the two races that best suit her pure climbing ability, and a Flanders-Flèche-Liège treble would rank among the greatest individual spring campaigns in the history of women's cycling. Only Kopecky has achieved anything comparable in recent seasons, and even the Belgian has never won all three in the same year.
For Paris-Roubaix Femmes, Vollering's absence removes the rider who looked most capable of winning any race she entered this spring. It narrows the favourites list to Kopecky, Ferrand-Prévot — if she starts — and a clutch of powerful cobbles specialists. But Vollering is making a bet that the bigger prizes lie ahead. The Tour de France Femmes in July is her ultimate objective, and every decision from now until the Grand Départ is calibrated to arrive at that race in the form of her life.
"Maybe one day I'll do Roubaix," she added with a smile. "But not yet. There are too many other races I want to win first." On current form, the list of races Demi Vollering cannot win is getting very short indeed.