Demi Vollering and Kasia Niewiadoma both say they have settled their differences following their much-publicised row over a manoeuvre by one of Vollering’s FDJ United-Suez teammates during Saturday’s stage, as the Dutchwoman launched her stage-winning attack.

However, the Tour de France Femmes winner criticised Niewiadoma’s decision to publicly call out her young French teammate in public, sparking online abuse and death threats.

In the mixed zone following Saturday’s stage, Canyon-SRAM leader Niewiadoma angrily confronted Vollering’s FDJ teammate Célia Gery, who she claimed cut her off on a sharp left-hand corner just as Vollering attacked on a steep slope towards the end of the stage, a move that saw the Dutch star take the yellow jersey in Nice, teeing up her overall victory.

“Why did you do that? Why did you close me to the barriers? Was it part of the plan? Why? Because we need answers,” Niewiadoma asked the 20-year-old French champion, who did not respond and turned away.

Speaking to reporters soon after the confrontation, Niewiadoma said: “I definitely thought that they would do something. They always have a plan, so I wasn’t surprised.

“I was super annoyed at the beginning of the climb because Gery on purpose just blocked me to the barriers, where I had to stop pedalling.

“So I feel like if they want to compete, they should compete fair play and not look to close me into the barriers because I feel like it’s so childish. Honestly I lost all the respect for them for that.”

On Sunday, however, Niewiadoma was seen talking to Vollering ahead of the final stage and on the first climb of the Col d’Èze, while she was also filmed by Wielerflits apologising to FDJ sports director Lars Boom after the stage.

“You know I’m not like this, and you know we’re not like this,” Boom said, after Niewiadoma told the DS that she was “sorry it turned out to be like this”.

However, in her post-race press conference, the Canyon-SRAM leader was evasive when asked about her discussion with Vollering during the stage.

“Just girl things,” she said, when the subject of their conversation was brought up. “We talked about yesterday, but sometimes it’s nice for us riders to talk through things and leave the media out of it.

“At the end of the day, there’s so much going on when you’re full gas. We’ve been competing together for years and we’ll be competing together for the next years, so none of us want to have a beef.”

> “It’s so childish, I lost all respect for them”: Furious Kasia Niewiadoma claims Demi Vollering’s teammate forced her into barriers as “part of the plan”, team complains to UCI

Cycling writer Jeremy Whittle then told Niewiadoma that FDJ sports director Stephen Delcourt had told reporters that she should apologise for her outburst.

“I didn’t know that, but if he thinks so, that’s okay,” the 2024 Tour winner said.

Meanwhile, during her winner’s press conference, Vollering was keen to stress the human element of the highly-publicised row, while criticising her rival for calling out Célia Gery in front of a host of reporters and TV cameras.

“First of all, don’t go on social media,” she said. “I tried telling Celia this, but it was too late. There were a lot of nasty messages and that makes me very angry, especially because she’s such a young girl still, and we should aways protect young people from these stupid actions from people who don’t think and just send a message.

“It’s very sad that people go to your profile and send threatening messages, I can’t understand this. It makes me very angry and she had a really tough time. So we had extra motivation to know that we can do it, without all the commotion about what happened yesterday.

“I went to Kasia this morning to say we never had intentions to block her. It was a tricky corner, there was a pothole in the middle, so there was only one way to take the line. And Celia had no other choice, and didn’t realise she’d done anything wrong.

“I just wanted to have a chat with Kasia, as I was a bit disappointed that she let all the emotions out like that about a rider, and saying their name. You should always avoid that kind of thing.

“First of all, we are riders, but next to that, we are human beings, we’re a real person. And if you say someone’s name or really attack somebody like this, it really hurts somebody and can do bad things to people. So you should never do that in my eyes, and I just wanted to say that to her.”

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Demi Vollering and the peloton, 2026 Tour de France Femmes, stage 9, Nice-Nice (Image Credit: A.S.O/Billy Ceusters)

Vollering then referenced her heavy crash during the 2024 Tour, which enabled Niewiadoma to open a gap that would ultimately prove crucial in securing her yellow jersey win on Alpe d’Huez.

“Two years ago when I was on the ground after my crash, she was the one who pulled full gas with her teammate to the finish line,” Vollering said.

“And I never blamed her for that, because that’s racing. I was really disappointed as well, and I also in that moment lost all respect for her.

“But I realised Kasia is a person, she’s a human being and it doesn’t make any sense to attack her in the media, because I have a lot of respect for her, as you should have for everyone in the bunch. We all know racing is crazy and we need to be as safe as possible. But we’re under so much pressure and sometimes things happen.

“She understood my message and she said she had a lot of respect for us, and that she likes the way we racing, and she just wasn’t happy with the situation. So I explained again that we didn’t want to block her on purpose. She said she understood and it was all good in the end. It was good we had a talk together.”