Vollering clinched a decisive victory in the Pyrenees mountains yesterday with a brilliant attack in thick fog in the final five kilometres on the Col du Tourmalet which left her compatriot and last year's winner Annemiek van Vleuten of The Netherlands unable to follow her.

The SD Worx rider won the 89.9km stage from Lannemezan to Tourmalet Bagnères-de-Bigorre in 2hours 52min 43sec, gaining 1min 58sec on Poland's Katarzyna Niewiadoma of Canyon-SRAM in second and 2:34 on van Vleuten, who rides for the Movistar Team.

Vollering's Belgian team-mate Lotte Kopecky had held the yellow jersey for the first six days after a first stage victory in the 123.8km loop around Clermont-Ferrand.

However, she finished sixth at 3:32 adrift on stage seven, dropping to fourth in the general classification at 2:35 behind Vollering.

Vollering's victory helped her to climb from seventh to first with a 1:50 lead over Niewiadoma and 2:28 over van Vleuten.

The 22.6km individual time trial in Pau featured an SD Worx one-two-three which ensured Vollering took the title.

Switzerland's Olympic time trial silver medallist Marlen Reusser was the stage winner in 29:25, with Vollering 10sec further back and Kopecky 38sec adrift in third.

The final stage also saw Kopecky take second place in the general classification, trailing Vollering by 3:03.

"It’s amazing what we did this week," Vollering said afterwards.

"We’ve had lots of ups, also some downs, and we showed how strong our team is and how motivated we are to get the best of each day, to fight for the wins."

Niewiadoma was 1:23 off the pace in the last stage in ninth place, and completed the overall podium at 3:03 adrift having been pipped to second by Kopecky.

Olympic time trial champion and road race silver medallist van Vleuten plans to retire at the end of the season, and had already won this year's La Vuelta Femenina and Giro Donne.

However, she was denied a clean sweep of women's cycling's Grand Tours for the second year running, and had to settle for fourth place at 3:59 behind Vollering.

Van Vleuten finished 14^th in the time trial in 30:56.

The second edition of the Tour de France Femmes was not without controversy, and Vollering was handed a 20sec penalty on stage five because of a drafting incident after suffering a puncture.

SD Worx sport director Danny Stam was also kicked off the race following the incident, with the International Cycling Union's (UCI) Commissaires’ Panel citing "the particularly dangerous nature of Mr Stam's overtaking of other cars and riders" and "inappropriate comments" made to the panel.

Kopecky won the points classification in addition to her second-place finish, Niewiadoma topped the mountains classification and France's Cédrine Kerbaol of Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling was the best young rider after an overall 37^th place finish.

The Tour de France Femmes finished less than a week before the start of the first unified UCI Cycling World Championships scheduled for Saturday (August 5) until August 13 in Glasgow.