history of women's tour de france

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The Tour de France Femmes’ Long and Winding Road: A brief history of the women’s Tour de France

On Sunday morning, the peloton will roll out of Clermont-Ferrand for start of the second edition of the relaunched Tour de France Femmes. After the roaring success of the 2022 Tour Femmes, in terms of both the racing and the fervent roadside and television audience (recent data revealed that the race reached a cumulative audience of over 23 million people), expectations are high for an event that is already, just twelve months into its renaissance, an integral part of the women’s cycling calendar.

Not that the Tour de France Femmes is resting on its laurels, however. The 2023 edition appears keen to cast off the shackles of its association with the all-encompassing Tour Hommes – the Paris start, a kind of symbolic ‘handover’ from the men’s race, is already gone, replaced by some tough opening days in the Massif Central: a decision informed, race director Marion Rousse says, partly by a desire for the race to assert its independence, and partly to put together an interesting sporting test.

The groundbreaking narrative of the Tour de France Femmes – rhetoric commonly used throughout 2022’s ‘inaugural’ edition – continues at pace this year. The 2023 Tour de France Femmes, according to the official record, is again one of firsts. A first start away from Paris, a first venture in the Pyrenees (with a summit finish atop the iconic Col du Tourmalet, no less), and a first decisive final day time trial in Pau.

Because, if you were reading the official Tour preview, you’d be fooled into thinking – with the exception of one or two casual references to the 1980s – that everything began in 2022.

> History maker: Peerless Annemiek van Vleuten wins first edition of relaunched Tour de France Femmes

But the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift (to give it its full title), as all those who fought to secure a stable, successful Tour de France for female riders will attest, forms part of a long history, one even more circuitous and taxing than the route the riders will face through the middle and south of France over the next eight days.

The long, hard fight

Because rather than a historic first, last year’s “inaugural” Tour de France Femmes was something of a rebirth, the culmination of a long fight to get something back, not gain something new.

The first women’s Tour de France was, in fact, held almost seven decades ago, in 1955. The race was the brainchild of journalist and sometime-team manager Jean Leulliot, who organised the infamous Circuit de France stage race in 1942 with the collaboration of the Nazis, and was the race director, and then owner, of Paris-Nice.

The inaugural Tour de France Féminin – only the second women’s stage race of its kind, after the Circuit Feminin Lyonnais-Auvergne was held earlier that year, in July – took place over five days in Normandy in September and October 1955.

It was won by Irish-born Isle of Man rider Millie Robinson, the winner of the Lyonnais-Auvergne race two months previously, who secured her historic (and largely forgotten) success via a late attack into Elbeuf on stage four and a dominant time trial performance – unsurprisingly, for someone from this part of the world – the following day.

However, despite the race’s apparent success, Leulliot quickly abandoned his experiment after just one edition.

Almost three decades later, in 1984, the idea was eventually revived by the Tour’s co-organiser Félix Lévitan. This time, the event much more closely resembled the men’s race and could properly be described, in the modern parlance, as a ‘grand tour’, and one which actually took the riders on a tour of France.

Two-time Tour Féminin winner Maria Canins climbs the Col d'Izoard during the 1986 race

The 1984 edition, held in the same summer as the inaugural women’s road race at the Olympic Games, took place over 18 days, with the women riding shortened versions of the men’s stages, including the iconic Alpine and Pyrenean passes such as the brutal Col de Joux Plane, earlier in the day.

That first-ever Tour de France Féminin, won by American Marianne Martin (two years before Greg LeMond became the country’s first male winner), kickstarted what was arguably the first ever golden age of women’s cycling.

Running concurrently with the men’s race meant that the pioneering women’s peloton were greeted by the same huge crowds, on the same iconic roads, while images of three-time winner Jeannie Longo – who enjoyed a brilliant rivalry with Italian double winner Maria Canins – on the final podium in Paris alongside Stephen Roche and LeMond, are embedded in the psyche of cycling fans of a certain vintage.

However, despite its links to the men’s event, the Tour de France Féminin retained an amateur-style, hard-scrabble feel, and was barely promoted beyond those taking part and the people they passed on the roadside. The ‘grand tour’ aspect of the race was also increasingly diluted as interest struggled to ignite – by 1989, it had been reduced to an 11-day race and was almost 300km shorter than its 1984 equivalent.

Following that 1989 edition, won once again by the dominant rider of her generation Longo, incoming Tour director Jean-Marie Leblanc scrapped the race, citing the commercial and financial concerns of running a race with limited media coverage and sponsorship (Leblanc missing the irony, clearly, of who was responsible for drumming up that interest).

Even more crucially, Leblanc and organisers ASO prevented other aspiring race planners from using the Tour de France trademark, ridding subsequent attempts at a women’s grand tour in France, such as the initial Tour of the EEC (first won in 1990 by four-time world champion Catherine Marshal) of much-needed legitimacy and exposure.

The trademark issue became a persistent thorn in the side for the event’s eventual successor, Pierre Boué’s Tour Cycliste Féminin (which later became known in 1998 as the Grande Boucle Féminine, after ASO complained, predictably, about the previous name).

Despite featuring long and tough stages, and some of France’s most iconic climbs (the 1995 edition included a finish on Alpe d’Huez) the Grande Boucle struggled to draw in sponsors and was dogged by organisational difficulties such as poor accommodation and unpaid prize money. The two-week race was missing from the calendar in 2004, and returned in a much-shortened format the following year.

The final edition of the Grande Boucle in 2009, won by Emma Pooley (the third British triumph in four years following Nicole Cooke’s successes in 2006 and 2007) was only four stages and 306.5km-long, prompting Pooley to memorably describe it as “more of a Petite Boucle”.

Not that there was anything “petite” about the riders’ performances, however. The first of Cooke’s back-to-back wins, in 2006, saw the future Olympic and world champion ride away solo in the yellow jersey on Mont Ventoux – a poignant site for British cycling – to secure a dominant victory.

Nevertheless, the demise of the Grande Boucle acted as a catalyst for a rethink – for a women’s Tour de France to be successful and sustainable, it had to have the backing of, you guessed it, the Tour de France.

In the late 2000s, a campaign was launched by pro cyclist, film maker, and writer Kathryn Bertine, who was later joined by Pooley, the sport’s new superstar Marianne Vos, and triathlete Chrissie Wellington, to convince Tour organisers ASO to put their weight behind a real women’s Tour de France.

Lizzie Deignan outsprints Marianne Vos at the 2020 La Course

In 2014, the Tour organisers finally relented, to some degree, and came up with La Course by Le Tour de France. Originally held as a crit-style race around Paris on the same day as the final stage of the men’s race, the organisers then tinkered with a few mid-race experiments, while never expanding the event beyond two days.

Though La Course, and especially its first three years on the Champs-Élysées, felt at times like more of a concession than a statement of intent, a bolted-on afterthought rather than a sustainable plan for future growth, it nevertheless galvanised Bertine, Pooley, and Vos’s campaign for a proper, stable stage race under the Tour de France umbrella.

And with some scintillating racing to boot, especially once the race ventured beyond Paris – Annemiek van Vleuten’s stunning, last-ditch duel with Anna van der Breggen in the Alps in 2018 the undoubted highlight of the race’s tenure – even ASO couldn’t resist the hand of history, as well as the expectations of a sport and an audience that was fast outgrowing races seemingly more akin to amuse-bouches or petit fours than the full tasting menu of a grand tour.

In June 2021, ASO announced that a new women’s eight-day stage race, the Tour de France Femmes, would take place the week after the following year’s men’s race. A Tour de France for women was finally, after decades of struggle and frustrations, back.

And, it’s safe to say, the women’s peloton certainly made the most of the opportunity during a frenetic, exhilarating week on the fan-packed roads of France last year.

Stage four’s foray onto gravel brought drama and chaos, while Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig’s brilliant, come-from-behind sprint in Épernay – after a torrid opening few days for the Dane’s FDJ-Suez-Futuroscope team – reinforced her position as one of the sport’s darlings and its most entertaining interviewee.

Meanwhile, Annemiek van Vleuten’s stunning success in the Vosges mountains, after a battle with illness earlier in the week, provided the race with an inspiring, if ultimately predictable, climax.

But it was the success of the greatest rider of all time, Marianne Vos, that perfectly encapsulated what was a week-long celebration of women’s cycling. Vos’s two stage wins and five days in the yellow jersey proved not only fitting for a rider who has given the sport so much during her long, storied career, but for women’s cycling itself.

This was a case of cycling’s most iconic rider finally gracing the stage she has deserved for almost two decades. Vos fought long and hard for her moment at the Tour, and she deserved every second of it.

For one of the riders who took part in last year’s relaunched race, British road race champion Pfeiffer Georgi, the 2022 Tour de France Femmes was a “massive moment” for women’s cycling.

“It was a really amazing atmosphere,” the DSM rider told the road.cc Podcast . “We started on the Champs-Élysées and had our team presentation in front of the Eiffel Tower. The crowds were insane.

“Everyone had this feeling that it was a massive moment for women’s cycling. We waited a long time to have the race back, and just the support and the excitement of the racing every day, there was so much to fight for. And I felt very lucky to compete in the first edition of this new format.”

Of course, while we all got carried away with the euphoria of a fourth week of racing in July, the Tour Femmes isn’t perfect, and we should be cautious when evaluating what essentially amounts to a spot of late-stage band wagoning by ASO.

First, inequality still strikes at the heart of the relaunched women’s Tour. For starters, can an eight-day race really be defined as a ‘grand tour’? And even if there are plans in place to eventually expand the race to two, or even three, weeks, money remains an ever-present issue: Van Vleuten received €50,000 in prize money for her career-defining triumph, a tenth of what her male equivalent Jonas Vingegaard earned for winning the men’s Tour.

Despite the efforts of other race organisers, such as Flanders Classics – who this year began to offer equal prize money across its stable of one-day races – that chasm remains painfully intact for this year’s Tours de France.

Another measure of the gulf between how ASO views its male and female events lies most glaringly in the lack of line-to-line television coverage for the Tour Femmes. While the Tour Hommes has been graced with ‘every kilometre counts’ coverage for well over a decade now, the Tour Femmes more closely resembles the mid-2000s approach to watching a bike race on TV.

Last year, arguably the defining moment of the entire race came when Van Vleuten blew the field to shreds on the Petit Ballon, the first of stage seven’s three mammoth climbs – it’s just a shame no-one was able to see it, as the television cameras had yet to start rolling.

“I would love to see more TV coverage,” says Georgi. “I think that’s one of the most important things at the moment. People find our racing exciting, they want to watch it, and when it’s there, they do watch it. Some of the women’s classics have more viewers than the men’s.

“The interest and excitement are there, that’s where it all begins. That’s where people see it, that’s where sponsors get their products and name shown. TV coverage is the catalyst for everything, and getting our racing and love for the sport out there more.”

Reflecting on the impact of the Tour Femmes on women’s cycling, the 22-year-old continued: “The Tour is the pinnacle of cycling. And people who don’t know cycling always ask ‘have you raced it?’ I think everyone is so happy to say yes, we finally have it on our calendar.

“The first edition was eight stages, and I can see that growing over the years. It’s nice that it’s after the men’s Tour too, so the focus is on us. The crowds that came out, not just in Paris, but La Planche des Belles Filles was one of the craziest experiences I’ve had.

“It felt like I was on the Tour I’ve always watched on TV.”

It’s clear that women’s cycling, which experienced a great leap forward in terms of the quality of its races and the levels of professionalisation in the period between the last Grande Boucle in 2009 and the ‘inaugural’ Tour Femmes in 2022, deserves it place on cycling’s biggest stage.

It’s now up to ASO to make sure that the curtain doesn’t fall again.

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Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.

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A brief history of the ‘women’s Tour de France’

This year's big dance isn't the first time women have stage raced across france, but organizers and sponsors say this time it will stick..

Don't miss a moment of the 2024 Tour de France! Get recaps, insights, and exclusive takes with Velo's daily newsletter. >","name":"in-content-cta","type":"link"}}'>Sign up today! .

Much ado is being made about this year’s ‘inaugural’ Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift , but it’s not entirely fair to call it the first Tour de France for women.

Yes, this Tour is the first women’s stage race in France produced by the modern-day Amaury Sport Organization (ASO), the organizer of the men’s race. However, other promoters have tried — and regrettably, failed — to bring an equivalent French stage race to the women’s peloton for over half a century.

Let’s take a look.

“1955”

The first attempt at TdF equivalency for the women’s peloton happened in 1955, when French sports journalist Jean Leulliot launched the first ‘women’s Tour.’ Leulliot, who became notable for directing Paris-Nice for 25 years, hoped for seven stages of 80-100km apiece but had to settle for five.

At the time, there was no women’s road world championships, and the French Cycling Federation had only held four national championship races for women.

This historical precedent did not bode well for Leulliot’s race — although 41 women lined up (with Manx cyclist Millie Robinson winning), the race was a one-off, with no successor until the 80s.

1984–1989: Tour de France Féminin

In 1984, the Société du Tour de France, the then-organizer of the men’s Tour de France, introduced a women’s version of the Tour. For six years, the Tour de France Féminin was run alongside the men’s event, as a sort of curtain raiser.

The women’s race featured shorter distances, with both races using the same stage finish locations. The first edition had 18 stages, but dwindled to 11 by its final year in 1989.

American Marianne Martin won the first edition of the race in 1984, Italian Maria Canins won the second and third, and French phenom Jeannie Longo won the final three races.

In 1989, Jean-Marie Leblanc, the director of the Tour de France, halted the race in its current format, citing — wait for it — the economic cost of organizing the race with limited media coverage and sponsorship.

1990–1993: Tour of the EEC Women/ Tour de la C.E.E. féminin

Without the backing of the Société du Tour de France, other people stepped in to try and keep a ‘women’s Tour’ alive. The Tour of the EEC Women ran from 1990-1993. This race ranged from nine to 12 stages long and was first won by four-time world champion Frenchwoman Catherine Marsal.

Not much is written in the history books about these years of the race, perhaps because the Société du Tour de France — which became part of the ASO in 1992 — chose not to acknowledge it.

1992–2009: The Pierre Boué races: Tour Cycliste Féminin (1992–1997) and Grande Boucle Féminine Internationale (1998–2009)

In 1992, another French journalist, Pierre Boué, launched the Tour Cycliste Féminin to fill the void left by the axed women’s Tour de France.

While the race ran with moderate success for over a decade and a half, it often lacked stable sponsorship and suffered chronically from issues like poor accommodations, unnecessarily long neutral starts, and unpaid prize money. Boué had trouble finding towns willing to host stages, which led to long transfers and an inconsistent number of stages over the years.

Then, before the 1998 edition, the ASO claimed that the name of the race — Tour Cycliste Féminin — was a trademark infringement. From 1998 forward, the race became known as the Grande Boucle Féminine Internationale.

For the first 12 years of this stage race, women raced an average of 13 or 14 stages. Then, after a hiatus in 2004, it returned with a smaller size and scope. Only 66 riders lined up for the race’s final edition in 2009 — after a planned race start and three stages in Britain fell through, the race was only four days long.

The Grande Boucle ended after that year, citing insurmountable financial hardship due to lack of sponsorship, interest, and media coverage.

Other races

There were other stage races in France, like the Tour de l’Aude Cycliste Féminin (1985-2010) and the Route de France Féminine (2006-2015), that were successful for a period of time but that ultimately succumbed to the same old issues: financial and organizational dysfunction. Without a direct relationship to the ASO/Tour de France, it seemed that all races were doomed to fail at some point.

One light in that dark period has been the Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l’Ardèche , a weeklong stage race that has been held in southeastern France since 2003.

2014-2020: La Course

In 2014, professional cyclists Emma Pooley, Kathryn Bertine, and Marianne Vos, along with Ironman triathlete Chrissie Wellington, submitted a petition to Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour de France, demanding that women be allowed to race. The ASO responded by launching La Course by Le Tour de France.

The inaugural event was held as a one-day circuit race on the Champs-Élysées on the final day of the 2014 Tour de France. Subsequent editions were also short and sprinter-friendly.

In 2017, race organizers experimented with a two-day event: day one ended with a summit finish on the Col d’Izoard on the same day as stage 18 of the men’s race. It was followed by a time trial in Marseille. Annemiek van Vleuten won both stages and the overall title.

In 2018, the race shrunk back to one day and remained that way for its final editions in 2019 and 2020.

Initially praised for the exposure gained by ‘sharing the stage’ with the Tour de France, La Course was equally criticized for its brevity — both in duration and the distances of the parcours.

The ASO was also criticized for not doing enough to promote the race. The organization repeatedly stated that it would be logistically impossible to stage a women’s stage race at the same time as the men’s.

2022: Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift

After over 30 years and half as many excuses, the ASO is putting on a women’s Tour de France. Zwift has signed on as a four-year title sponsor, and the race has its own eight days on the calendar — beginning with a stage on the Champs-Élysées on July 24 before the men roll into Paris on the last day of their race.

When the route was revealed in October of last year, riders were mostly pleased with the parcours. A few  VeloNews  editors also agreed: eight days seemed like a promising start given the current situation of the women’s peloton (ie. its depth and resources, not the riders’ ability to race a longer event).

24 teams will ride 1,029 kilometers over the eight stages, and the race ends with a summit finish atop the Super Planche des Belles Filles.

Long the bane of women’s pro racing, TV broadcasting of the TdFF is locked and loaded. NBC Sports has rights to broadcast the race in the U.S. in both 2022 and 2023, and Europeans can watch on Discovery Sports and Eurovision Sport. ESPN will broadcast in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Australians can watch the action on SBS OnDemand.

Popular on Velo

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A brief history of the ‘women’s Tour de France’

Much ado is being made about this year’s ‘inaugural’ Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift , but it’s not entirely fair to call it the first Tour de France for women.

Yes, this Tour is the first women’s stage race in France produced by the modern-day Amaury Sport Organization (ASO), the organizer of the men’s race. However, other promoters have tried -- and regrettably, failed -- to bring an equivalent French stage race to the women’s peloton for over half a century.

Let’s take a look.

The first attempt at TdF equivalency for the women’s peloton happened in 1955, when French sports journalist Jean Leulliot launched the first ‘women’s Tour.’ Leulliot, who became notable for directing Paris-Nice for 25 years, hoped for seven stages of 80-100km apiece but had to settle for five.

At the time, there was no women’s road world championships, and the French Cycling Federation had only held four national championship races for women.

This historical precedent did not bode well for Leulliot’s race -- although 41 women lined up (with Manx cyclist Millie Robinson winning), the race was a one-off, with no successor until the 80s.

1984-1989: Tour de France Feminin

In 1984, the Societe du Tour de France, the then-organizer of the men’s Tour de France, introduced a women’s version of the Tour. For six years, the Tour de France Feminin was run alongside the men’s event, as a sort of curtain raiser.

The women’s race featured shorter distances, with both races using the same stage finish locations. The first edition had 18 stages, but dwindled to 11 by its final year in 1989.

American Marianne Martin won the first edition of the race in 1984, Italian Maria Canins won the second and third, and French phenom Jeannie Longo won the final three races.

In 1989, Jean-Marie Leblanc, the director of the Tour de France, halted the race in its current format, citing -- wait for it -- the economic cost of organizing the race with limited media coverage and sponsorship.

1990-1993: Tour of the EEC Women/ Tour de la C.E.E. feminin

Without the backing of the Societe du Tour de France, other people stepped in to try and keep a ‘women’s Tour’ alive. The Tour of the EEC Women ran from 1990-1993. This race ranged from nine to 12 stages long and was first won by four-time world champion Frenchwoman Catherine Marsal.

Not much is written in the history books about these years of the race, perhaps because the Societe du Tour de France -- which became part of the ASO in 1992 -- chose not to acknowledge it.

1992-2009: The Pierre Boue races: Tour Cycliste Feminin (1992-1997) and Grande Boucle Feminine Internationale (1998-2009)

In 1992, another French journalist, Pierre Boue, launched the Tour Cycliste Feminin to fill the void left by the axed women's Tour de France.

While the race ran with moderate success for over a decade and a half, it often lacked stable sponsorship and suffered chronically from issues like poor accommodations, unnecessarily long neutral starts, and unpaid prize money. Boue had trouble finding towns willing to host stages, which led to long transfers and an inconsistent number of stages over the years.

Then, before the 1998 edition, the ASO claimed that the name of the race -- Tour Cycliste Feminin -- was a trademark infringement. From 1998 forward, the race became known as the Grande Boucle Feminine Internationale.

For the first 12 years of this stage race, women raced an average of 13 or 14 stages. Then, after a hiatus in 2004, it returned with a smaller size and scope. Only 66 riders lined up for the race’s final edition in 2009 -- after a planned race start and three stages in Britain fell through, the race was only four days long.

The Grande Boucle ended after that year, citing insurmountable financial hardship due to lack of sponsorship, interest, and media coverage.

Other races

There were other stage races in France, like the Tour de l’Aude Cycliste Feminin (1985-2010) and the Route de France Feminine (2006-2015), that were successful for a period of time but that ultimately succumbed to the same old issues: financial and organizational dysfunction. Without a direct relationship to the ASO/Tour de France, it seemed that all races were doomed to fail at some point.

One light in that dark period has been the Tour Cycliste Feminin International de l’Ardeche , a weeklong stage race that has been held in southeastern France since 2003.

2014-2020: La Course

In 2014, professional cyclists Emma Pooley, Kathryn Bertine, and Marianne Vos, along with Ironman triathlete Chrissie Wellington, submitted a petition to Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour de France, demanding that women be allowed to race. The ASO responded by launching La Course by Le Tour de France.

The inaugural event was held as a one-day circuit race on the Champs-Elysees on the final day of the 2014 Tour de France. Subsequent editions were also short and sprinter-friendly.

In 2017, race organizers experimented with a two-day event: day one ended with a summit finish on the Col d’Izoard on the same day as stage 18 of the men’s race. It was followed by a time trial in Marseille. Annemiek van Vleuten won both stages and the overall title.

In 2018, the race shrunk back to one day and remained that way for its final editions in 2019 and 2020.

Initially praised for the exposure gained by ‘sharing the stage’ with the Tour de France, La Course was equally criticized for its brevity -- both in duration and the distances of the parcours.

The ASO was also criticized for not doing enough to promote the race. The organization repeatedly stated that it would be logistically impossible to stage a women’s stage race at the same time as the men’s.

2022: Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift

After over 30 years and half as many excuses, the ASO is putting on a women’s Tour de France. Zwift has signed on as a four-year title sponsor, and the race has its own eight days on the calendar -- beginning with a stage on the Champs-Elysees on July 24 before the men roll into Paris on the last day of their race.

When the route was revealed in October of last year, riders were mostly pleased with the parcours. A few VeloNews editors also agreed: eight days seemed like a promising start given the current situation of the women’s peloton (ie. its depth and resources, not the riders’ ability to race a longer event).

24 teams will ride 1,029 kilometers over the eight stages, and the race ends with a summit finish atop the Super Planche des Belles Filles.

Long the bane of women’s pro racing, TV broadcasting of the TdFF is locked and loaded. NBC Sports has rights to broadcast the race in the U.S. in both 2022 and 2023, and Europeans can watch on Discovery Sports and Eurovision Sport. ESPN will broadcast in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Australians can watch the action on SBS OnDemand.

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After more than 30 years, a multiday women's Tour de France is back

Tom Goldman

Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio of Team South Africa leads the peloton during the women's road race on the second day of the 2020 Olympic Games at Fuji International Speedway on July 25, 2021 in Oyama, Shizuoka, Japan. Michael Steele/Getty Images hide caption

Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio of Team South Africa leads the peloton during the women's road race on the second day of the 2020 Olympic Games at Fuji International Speedway on July 25, 2021 in Oyama, Shizuoka, Japan.

Bicycle racing's most famous competition, for men, ends Sunday in Paris.

But on the same day, in the same city, another version of the Tour de France begins .

And this one is for the world's best female riders.

It's been more than 30 years since women have competed in a viable, multistage Tour de France. Now they finally have another chance, and it's due, in large part, to the pandemic.

Pedaling to victory at home

With COVID-19 surging in 2020, elite cyclists, pretty much like everyone, were on lockdown.

But for them, as the proverbial door closed, another opened.

The company Zwift , which combines fitness and video gaming for indoor training, put on virtual races worldwide, with separate contests for men and women. Including a virtual Tour de France.

Some pro cyclists rolled their eyes.

"Like, I did not want to ride inside. I thought it was dumb," said American cyclist Lily Williams. "You know it's harder to ride inside because you're just staring at the wall."

Others embraced the chance to break the drudgery of indoor training and maintain a level of competitiveness, albeit virtual.

"I saw the opportunity it presented for us in one of the most challenging years for the world," said Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, a 13-year veteran of women's pro cycling.

It paid off for Moolman-Pasio.

She pedaled to victory in stage five of the 2020 virtual Tour de France, the so-called "queen stage." The toughest stage in a multiday road race.

The next day, Moolman-Pasio and her husband ventured outside their home in Girona, Spain, and noticed people pointing.

"He's like, 'Well, it's because of the Tour de France,' " Moolman-Pasio said. "You know you were on TV and everyone saw you winning the queen stage."

It was not an isolated incident.

Colombian rider Egan Bernal , the 2019 Tour de France champion, holds a virtual test during a news conference in Bogota on April 2, 2022. JUAN BARRETO/Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Colombian rider Egan Bernal , the 2019 Tour de France champion, holds a virtual test during a news conference in Bogota on April 2, 2022.

Turning virtual racing into reality

According to Zwift, more than 16 million people in more than 130 countries saw the virtual races – on television and digital platforms. And viewership was equally split between the men's and women's events.

Longtime Tour de France organizer ASO — the Amaury Sport Organization — saw in those numbers the potential for women's cycling.

"That's how the conversation started," said Moolman-Pasio.

The conversation with Zwift was about launching a real women's Tour, one with heft and sustainability. A top-notch broadcast plan was critical.

"That's the key to the success of the race," said Kate Veronneau from Zwift, "to building that audience, to building future investment and growing the race and keeping it around."

Veronneau says broadcasting to 190 countries on each of the race's eight days should certainly help keep the new women's Tour de France around.

After so many other Tours had gone away.

Laurent Fignon, left, of France, and Marianne Martin of Boulder, Colo., hold up their trophies in Paris after winning the men's and women's Tour de France cycling races on July 23, 1984. Steven/AP hide caption

Trials, and lots of errors

In 1955, a five-stage loop from Paris to Normandy marked the first women's Tour de France. But it only lasted a year.

It wasn't until 1984 that organizers tried again.

A multistage event called the Tour de France Feminin ran for six years. It featured three wins for French cycling legend Jeannie Longo .

She won the last event in 1989. That Tour folded, like other versions after, because of uneven media coverage and sponsorship.

Both are there now.

Zwift won't say how much money it's poured into its four-year title sponsorship of the Tour de France femmes avec Zwift . But it's enough for about $250,000 in prize money, with $50,000 to the winner.

Finally seeing women

Moolman-Pasio is one of many veteran riders who've fought for a viable women's Tour de France. She's thrilled about finally getting to race in cycling's most prominent event, and about the girls and young women who'll be watching.

"Instead of sitting on the couch and watching the Tour de France and seeing men race up these epic climbs and fighting for the yellow jersey, finally they will see [women]," Moolman-Pasio said. "And it's the opportunity for them to recognize pro cycling as a career choice."

It's still a challenging choice, though.

Many female pro cyclists have to work as well as race.

Williams, the U.S. rider who thought virtual racing was dumb but now likes it so much she sometimes rides inside intentionally, was one of them. She's spent most of her five years as a pro working another job – as communications director for a bike registration network.

But the financial landscape is changing, and finally, Williams is a full time pro.

"This is the first year I've made a full salary from cycling," she said. "Now I actually have the opportunity to just race my bike, which I can't even tell you goes so far because not only is the training and racing incredibly demanding but the travel and the recovery require so much more of you than it did before."

The sport's governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), has been raising minimum salaries for women competing on professional teams. Team budgets are growing, as is prize money across the board. After the Tour de France femmes avec Zwift announced its record $250,000 purse, another women's grand tour event, the Giro d'Italia Donne, matched the Tour's prize money amount.

In her short professional career, Williams has won a World Championship gold medal and Olympic bronze in track cycling. She's excited about the upcoming Tour, a hallowed road race she watched every year, with her family, growing up.

A race now for women too.

"I think it's [part of] the general trend we're seeing everywhere," Williams said, "where women are gaining equal opportunity across the board in a lot of different areas of the world. So it's all kind of coming to a head. And I think the Tour de France is going to be such a great opportunity for us to showcase that as well."

Lily Williams celebrates after the Women's Team Pursuit Finals during the second day of the UCI Track Cycling World Championships on Feb. 27, 2020, in Berlin. Maja Hitij/Getty Images hide caption

Lily Williams celebrates after the Women's Team Pursuit Finals during the second day of the UCI Track Cycling World Championships on Feb. 27, 2020, in Berlin.

Eight, for now

It will be a shorter showcase than the men's Tour.

Women's teams aren't big enough, at least for now, to support a 21-stage Tour de France like the men.

"The top women are more than ready to race three weeks," said Sadhbh O'Shea, a bicycle racing writer for VeloNews. "[But with] a good chunk of these riders working part time to fund their racing, until we can get a full peloton of professional riders, I don't think the women's sport is ready for a full three-week stage race."

But O'Shea thinks the eight-stage race starting Sunday is right for this initial effort.

With so much racing in the men's Tour, "you tend to get these dips in terms of the pace and aggression," O'Shea said. "Whereas with the women's racing, because it's shorter because there are fewer riders, it tends to be a little more gung-ho right from the start and all the way through. You do occasionally get lulls, but it tends to be more action, more of the time."

The women's stages average 80 miles, the men 99.

The action starts Sunday in Paris, before the men arrive for their finish, when the women will own the city streets. Their first stage begins at the Eiffel Tower – 12 laps, or 50 miles later — it ends on the Champs-Elysees. After the city, seven more stages of sprints, grueling mountain climbs and even sections of gravel and dirt roads.

By the end, on July 31, the new women's Tour hopes to finish with new fans, and a promise to be back – year after year.

The Untold Truth Of The Women's Tour De France

It's been a long time coming, but women finally have their own Tour de France — again. Thirty-three years have passed since the inaugural Tour de France Féminin in 1984, but the newly launched Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift looks promising. With a four-year sponsorship from fitness company Zwift and more broadcasting attention than ever before, the 2022 women's Tour is heralding a new era for women athletes. Nearly 20 million viewers in France tuned in to watch coverage of the entire race, while the finale alone attracted five million viewers, per Cycling News . The men's Tour de France is known for being the most-watched sporting event in the world, with a total viewership of 3.5 billion, per Peloton Magazine. Female cyclists can now take a piece of that pie.

The race featured 1,033.6 kilometers — or 642.2 miles — with increasingly challenging terrain and a final leg through the mountains. There were 24 teams competing with six riders each. The winner was Annemiek van Vleuten of Movistar, who over $250,000 in prize money, per Le Tour Femmes . Read on for untold truths about the inaugural women's Tour de France.

The first women's Tour de France was a one-off in 1955

The true first women's Tour de France occurred in 1955 when sports journalist Jean Leulliot launched the first world championship for women cyclists. He had experience directing other races, like the Paris-Nice race, which he ran for 25 years, per VeloNews . Leulliot wanted the race to have seven stages that were 80-100 kilometers each — or 49.7 to 62.1 miles — but only five stages were approved. There were 41 participants, and the winner was a cyclist from the Isle of Man, Millie Robinson. She won the race by 35 seconds over British cyclist June Thackeray, per VeloNews .

Many of the contestants were British since they had experience with time trials, according to Rene Herse Cycles . Robinson herself had just won all three stages of the largest cycling race for women at the time — the Circuit Lyonnais-Auvergne. The first few stages of the 1955 women's Tour de France were won by Frenchwoman Lyli Herse until the fourth stage, which was when the race was taken over by Robinson. She dominated the time trial during the fifth stage, cycling at an average speed of 23.6 miles per hour. 

After the race, Leulliot focused his attention onto other projects, and the idea of a Tour de France Féminin was left alone until 1984.

The race has struggled to find support and financial backing

The 1984 inaugural Tour de France Féminin was meant to be the start of a preeminent world championship for women's cycling. According to The Washington Post , it had 18 stages and covered 600 miles, the longest Tour race for women to date, per Rene Herse Cycles . And most importantly, it was being launched by the organization behind the men's Tour de France, Société du Tour de France. But public interest in women's sports hampered the race's success. It lasted only six years before it was shut down due to the lack of financial support. In 1989, the director of the Tour de France, Jean-Marie Leblanc, cited limited media coverage and sponsorship for the race's collapse, per VeloNews .

The race had been on a decline since it started. The number of stages fell from 18 to 11 by its final year, and the women also had to work in order to support themselves. Today, 14 of the 24 teams competing are required to give their members a minimum salary, per The Washington Post . Women cyclists in 1984 also had to compete for attention alongside men since their races were held at the same time, per the New York Times . Additionally, the men had nicer accommodations and meals. To top it all off, the women's prize money was a mere $1,000 while the male winner earned more than $100,000.

The women's Tour de France was replaced by smaller races

To fill the void left by the failed Tour de France Féminin in the '80s, other races for women popped up in its place. As VeloNews  details, from 1990 to 1993, the Tour of the EEC Women had nine to 12 stages. Its first champion was Frenchwoman Catherine Marsal. It received no support or mention from the Société du Tour de France, which later became part of the Amaury Sport Organization (ASO) in 1992.

In 1992, French journalist Pierre Boué took it upon himself to bring a new race, the Tour Cycliste Féminin, but it was riddled with problems. Boué struggled to find financial support, as Marion Clignet, who took second place in 1993, remembers the women's race being very unassuming with little fanfare at the time (via Cycling News ). So it's no wonder sponsorships were hard to find. Competitors also had to deal with long neutral starts and long transfers while the number of stages changed by year since towns willing to host were hard to find. Not the mention the fact that there was little to no prize money year to year for the winners. 

But the race wasn't without merit, and it allowed women to feel as if they had their own Tour de France. Boué was set on giving a race to women that was competitively long and that proved to the world that they could handle it, per Cycling News. At its inception, the race had nine stages, which rose to 14 in later years. In 1993, the race covered 1,000 kilometers — or 621.3 miles — and included a dramatic climb up l'Alpe d'Huez, which was unprecedented for women's races.

Only one American has won it

When the Tour de France Féminin debuted in 1984, America made its mark through the race's first champion, Marianne Martin. Both the men's and women's races were held at the same time, so Martin, along with other female cyclists, sometimes benefitted from the attention that the male cyclists usually received. The women raced ahead of the men's peloton as they traversed the same tortuous legs up the Alps and Pyrenees, as per h NPR . They were greeted by the same fans as they toured the same last 37.2 miles. 

Martin was even able to share the podium with the men's champion, Laurent FIgnon. Despite all this, she recalled the stark inequality between the two groups in an interview with NPR . For one, her prize was only around $1,000, while Fignon received more than $100,000. People also didn't expect women to finish the race at all. She said there was a significant difference in their experiences.

But Martin's win was an impressive event to remember, especially since she hadn't prepared. When she first tried out, she wasn't in good physical shape, so she was left off the team. But after doing well in a United States national race, the national team coach relented and gave her a spot. She also had been racing in the Olympic trials for a chance to compete for the national team, but she preferred the Tour de France opportunity. In the end, Martin won by a margin of three minutes.

The rebirth of the women's Tour de France began with a virtual race

When the world was on lockdown in 2020, virtual fitness company Zwift debuted a virtual Tour de France. The in-person race was postponed for August, but it left a void in the month of July, when racing is usually held. The virtual Tour de France gave both men and women a chance to compete with identical stages and distances, along with the same broadcast coverage, per Cycling Weekly . 

While Zwift had a history of promoting women's cycling and making it its mission to provide equal opportunity, the virtual event proved that women's racing was ready for an upgrade. According to NPR , the virtual event was broadcast in 130 countries, and the company found that viewership was evenly split between the men's and women's races. The virtual race's success helped change minds at the ASO, the organization responsible for the Tour de France, and with Zwift's four-year sponsorship, a Tour de France Femmes became a reality.

Women cyclists were initially skeptical about the virtual race. American cyclist Lily Williams said she didn't want to ride inside because it would involve staring at a wall, which could make the experience harder. However, the importance of its total success can't be understated since it nudged the ASO to finally act. Linda Jackson, the owner of EF EDucation-TIBCO-SVB women's cycling team, told the New York Times that ASO wasn't motivated by women's equality but rather the tangible engagement Zwift propelled.

The ASO chief didn't have faith in the Tour's success

Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme might have sounded like a hero when he confirmed that a Tour de France Femmes would debut in 2022. But he quickly soured his own moment of glory during a 2021 interview when he told The Guardian that women's races always lose the Amaury Sport Organization (ASO) money. After confirming the date of the Tour de France Femmes, Prudhomme stressed that this new race must not repeat the same mistakes as previous women's championships — namely, it must make money. If not, Prudhomme warned, it would go the way of the 1984 Tour de France Féminin. He also emphasized the fact that despite it being a bad investment, the ASO continued to organize women's one-day races.

The reaction was swift. Cyclist Kathryn Bertine called Prudhomme's comments sexist and ignorant, per Cycling News . She argued that women's events do, in fact, make money but lack the promotion and support from the ASO. The organization has the power to make money from any event if they want to. However, she agreed with some of Prudhomme's solutions to strengthen the race's longevity and relevance, such as scheduling the race after the men's. That way, the men's race wouldn't overshadow the women's. Bertine said that the ASO had a responsibility to then promote the Tour de France Femmes extensively on its own.

The prize money is €1.9 million less than the men's Tour de France

Nothing is more emblematic of the disparity between the Tour de France's men's and women's races than their prize money. The men's Tour de France champion receives €2.2 million while the female champion receives a total of €250,000, according to CNN . To make matters worse, women have struggled to make a living while cycling. Many have had to work second jobs or otherwise reimburse their cycling team for expenses they incurred, such as bike maintenance and repair and medical costs.

In 2021, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) mandated that teams in the top tier of cycling, Women's WorldTour teams (WWT), must raise competitor salary to $27,961, more than a $10,000 increase from 2020. By 2023, team members will see about a $5,000 increase in their salary. However, tiers below WWT teams remain unprotected. In a 2022 survey, 60% of non-WWT professional cyclists said they didn't get paid at all.

Financial burdens have hampered the ability for women cyclists to hone their craft. Marianne Martin, the Tour de France Féminin's 1984 world champion, said she had to pay her own way to France. In order to get onto the team, she had to participate in numerous races in America and had to use her credit card to get by. By the time she retired, she was in debt.

The 2022 inaugural race had a huge pile-up

During stage five of the Tour de France Femmes, catastrophe struck. Contact between two cyclists caused a huge pile up with cyclists crashing into each other. People screamed as medics rushed on the scene, and athletes struggled to disentangle themselves and remove their feet from the spokes of competitors' wheels, according to UPI . The incident occurred with 31 miles left in the stage. Half of the women's peloton fell off their bikes, with several minutes passing before the athletes could recover and return to form. Many were left with minor injuries, but Movistar's Emma Norsgaard had to leave in an ambulance, effectively ending her race. In a post on Instagram , the team told its followers that she had hit her head, neck, and left shoulder. Movistar later reported on Twitter that Norsgaard remained under medical observation for 24 hours.

SD Worx's Chantal van den Broek-Blaak was another cyclist who was injured and had her right arm bandaged while riding in the team car. Former British cyclist Dani Christmas attributed the large crash to a false sense of security when riding among the pack, leading cyclists to lose attention. She also noted taht speed they were going only made things worse, per Eurosport .

The 2022 winner suffered a stomach bug and five bike changes

Tour de France Femmes champion Annemiek van Vleuten had a rough journey to her win. Only two hours after stage one ended, van Vleuten was hit with a stomach bug, per VeloNews . She couldn't eat or drink but hinted that the symptoms were fleeting whenever she felt them. The issue lasted for more than a day, and the recovery period was difficult for her, as well. She continued to suffer through stage two, which she lost, but she recovered during stage three — where came in second place. 

Her struggles didn't end there, however. Stage four's gravel tracks were, according to her, "bad luck." During the eighth and final stage of the race, van Vleuten had to change her bike five times, according to Cycling Weekly . The first time was done on purpose. She began the race on an all-yellow bike that was gifted to her moments before. Strange as it might sound, the paint weighed too heavily on the bike. But van Vleuten anticipated this, and she switched to her comfort bike — a black bike with yellow accents. That wasn't the end of it. She ran into mechanical issues with the bike and had to switch again, this time with a teammate. Once her preferred bike was repaired, van Vleuten hopped off, again, and rode to victory.

The race received more support than they ever had

Public engagement with professional women's cycling has come a long way. For one, the devoted backing from Zwift is unprecedented. And then there's all of the publicity and attention. Prior to the race, one of the competing teams, Le Col Wahoo, and its sponsors teamed up with the Global Cycling Network to give away 10,000 subscriptions so that fans could watch the race for free, per CNN . As for everyone else, multiple stations made live coverage available. NBC Sports received the rights to broadcast it in the U.S. for both 2022 and 2023. Fans in Europe could have tuned into Discovery Sports and Eurovision Sports. It was also available on SBS OnDemand in Australia and on ESPN in Latin America and the Caribbean, per VeloNews .

There was two-and-a-half hours of live television coverage of the women's tour each day of the race, which athletes hoped was enough to change interest in the sport and believed the future hinged on the 2022 race's popularity, per the New York Times . Zwift, the fitness company sponsoring the race, agreed to back the Tour de France Femmes if there was a good broadcasting plan behind it. They believed it was the key to its success, per NPR .

The race needs more diversity

Ayesha McGowan is the first African-American woman on a professional cycling team, and although she likes being the first, she doesn't want to be the only one. She created Thee Abundance Project and its 2022 Micro Grant Program to provide women from ethnic minorities funding for expenses related to cycling: housing, transportation, and other fees, reports  CNN . McGowan believes there are common misconceptions when it comes to women from underrepresented communities and their numbers in cycling. People assume that their low numbers are indicative of a lack of interest, but McGowan believes that if opportunities are created, these women will show up, notes NBC Sports . Opportunity generates participation, since it opens a door that women from minority communities wouldn't have otherwise.

McGowan herself only began competitive cycling when she was 26. Acknowledging the progress made for all women in cycling with the inaugural Tour de France Femmes and the new minimum salary requirements, she wishes there was more diversity in the race and hopes to see more progress on that front. McGowan couldn't participate with her team, Liv Racing Xstra, in the Tour because she was recovering from myomectomy surgery. But she hopes to race in it next year.

Cyclists want changes to the women's Tour de France

There's room for the Tour de France Femmes to evolve, and cyclists have called for certain changes. For one, there weren't any time trials included in the race. In the men's Tour de France, cyclists have to race against the clock across 8.1 miles during the first stage. Time trials can be done individually or by team, and there are men's competitions that are solely based on time trials, per Cycling Weekly . Although it's an expected element in stage races, women's championships infamously lack them. There were only two WorldTour races that had time trials, one at the Giro Donne and another at the Simac Tour. Women cyclists felt the Tour de France was incomplete without it since it contained several of the other disciplines common in stage races, per Cycling News .

Cyclist Kathryn Bertine has focused her attention on other changes, including increasing the Tour's length to 21 days to keep it on par with the men's, according to The Guardian . She's concerned that shorter distances convey to the public that women cannot handle the same distances as men. She also finds issue with the prize money, which is only a tenth of what the men's champion earns. Bertine was part of a 2013 lobbying group that pressured the ASO into forming a women's Tour de France, and the resulting product was La Course, a one-day race that ran from 2014 to 2021 and ushered in the current Tour de France Femmes.

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Four years ago on a sunny July day in Paris, former pro cyclist Kathryn Bertine wheeled up to the starting line of La Course by Le Tour de France. She still remembers feeling the energy on the Champs Élysées that day and hearing the scrape of cleats on cobblestones. She’d spent years negotiating, petitioning, and organizing to bring about the event and finally she’d arrived, along with a roster of the best women cyclists in the world. 

La Course was the latest attempt in a decades-long fight to create a lasting, prestigious women’s stage race to run alongside the Tour de France. Such events have come and gone through the decades, beset by financial struggles, organizational roadblocks, lack of media coverage, and good old-fashioned sexism. But Bertine thought that this time, she could make it stick. 

The first attempt at a women’s Tour took place in 1955, when 41 women competed in the five-day Tour de France Féminin , put on by French journalist and race director Jean Leulliot. Despite mockery from the press and photographers, who allegedly tried to surprise competitors in their dormitories, the women finished the race. But without stable financial backing, the race disappeared the following year.

The Tour de France Féminin returned in 1984, this time organized by the group behind the men’s Tour de France. The idea was to create a truly equal event: during the three-week tour, women rode the same routes as their male counterparts, albeit slightly shortened to ensure they finished ahead of the men’s peloton. But a lack of prime-time attention hurt the race: cycling publications largely ignored the women. After two years of a full-length tour, organizers cut the Tour de France Féminin down to two weeks.

By that point, the business of professional cycling had started to change dramatically. TV coverage of the Tour de France increased, turning sponsorships and ads into a lucrative business. In 1989, the Tour organizers dropped the women’s race entirely in order to capitalize on the much larger men’s audience. “We could have been watching women since 1989,” says Bertine. “But instead they sold the TV rights for the men and got rid of the women.”

The events have come and gone through the decades, beset by financial struggles, organizational roadblocks, lack of media coverage, and good old-fashioned sexism.

There were other attempts from other organizers: the Tour de l’Aude Cycliste Féminin, a women’s stage race held in south-central France that was founded in 1985 as a four-day event and grew into a multi-day tour that by 2006 had ten stages; the 1992 La Grand Boucle Féminin   Internationale (so named because organizers of the Tour de France prohibited any reference to “the Tour” on the grounds of trademark infringement), which lasted for 12 years and linked epic stages; the 2004 Grand Boucle Féminin, which lasted till 2010; and the 2006 Route de France Féminine, which became one of France’s most prestigious women’s races until it was canceled in 2017 due to a scheduling conflict and the UCI’s decision not to give the race WorldTour status. 

Over and over again, the same fatal cycle repeated itself: Without robust media coverage, the audience wasn’t big enough to attract sponsors to fund big events. Without big events, no sponsors were interested. After all, people can’t want what they cannot see—nor can advertisers buy it.

That was the problem La Course, which was the result of years of lobbying the UCI, sought to address. It would piggyback on the infrastructure and media attention of the Tour de France. Live on 24 channels, the race was watched by millions of viewers in at least 150 countries. Dutch phenom Marianne Vos  would go on to sprint for the win and earn part of the $30,500 purse—a prize equal to the amount men receive for winning just one stage of the Tour.

Lots of people hailed La Course as a massive step forward for women’s cycling. But critics called it a token event to quell the increasingly vocal complaints about gender inequality in cycling. It was only a one-day race instead of a multi-day tour—a curtain raiser for the men, who were still very much the main event, they said. The 55-mile race lasted just over two hours and covered 2.5 percent of the Tour de France course.

“We intended the race initially be three to seven days the first year, and it would grow incrementally from there as the financial structure of women’s cycling grew,” says Bertine. “We saw it as getting our foot in the door.”

The UCI, the sport’s international governing body, seemed to echo this thought. “Our job now,” said Brian Cookson , then newly minted president of the UCI, in 2014 “is…to make sure that women’s road cycling develops in a way that is sustainable, that builds on each successive step with another successful step.”

That never happened. After repeating the one-day event on the Champs-Elysees in 2015 and 2016, the Amaury Sports Organization (ASO), which puts on the Tour de France, added a second day to La Course in 2017. But the format changed. Day one was a mountain stage, a climb to the Col d’Izoard—the men’s final mountain stage in the Tour. But while the men rode 103 miles, the women’s stage was a paltry 41. And only the top 20 finishers of this stage were allowed to participate in day two, an unorthodox pursuit-style individual time trial. “If you follow cycling, that’s ridiculous!” Bertine says. “Why would you take the top 20 climbers and put them in a time trial? It’s a totally different event. It was a show pony event.”

The disappointment was evident. “We took it as seriously as we felt the organizers took us,” sats British rider Lizzie Deignan, who pointed out that she couldn’t even find a women’s toilet at the race start. “To warm up for a time trial not knowing where the closest bathroom is—if there is one at all—It’s difficult to take that seriously.” Retired German cyclist Judith Arndt, two-time winner of the Tour de l’Aude, was more blunt. She called the new format “pathetic and humiliating.”

“If we want to rise above the inequality, it’s the women who have to rise up together and say, ‘No more. This is not okay. I deserve exactly what the men have.’ ”

This year, the event was once again shortened. The one-day race was another truncated version of the men’s Stage 10 of the Tour de France, a 159 kilometer ascent in the Alps with four major climbs. La Course covered 118 kilometers of that route, omitting two of the four climbs.

“I did get the feeling from ASO that they were annoyed by the hassle of having to deal with women wanting a race and then having to arrange a women’s race,” British World Champion Emma Pooley told VeloNews . She pointed to the OVO Women’s Tour, a five-day, 650-kilometer women’s stage race in the United Kingdom as a model that shows the audience does exist for women’s events. VeloNews reported that the 2017 race, according to organizers, attracted 500,000 spectators and 1.4 million UK TV viewers.

At this year’s La Course, the women delivered a thrilling show with a hold-your-breath ending. After a high-speed descent from the Col de la Colombiere, Anna van der Breggen, the Dutch Olympic gold medalist who won the women’s road race at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, appeared to have won the race. Then, in the final 300 meters, fellow Dutchwoman Annemiek van Vleuten (who led the race in Rio before a horrific crash that knocked her out cold) began closing the gap. Just 50 meters from the finish line, van Vleuten passed van der Breggan, winning La Course by one second.

It was yet another reminder of how exciting women’s pro cycling can be. And yet, the live TV coverage in the United States was a joke wrapped in an insult and deep-fried in indignity. “Only the last kilometer was televised,” Bertine says. “In the States, the only way to see the whole race was to buy a subscription to NBC Sports Gold [a stand-alone online streaming service for $49.99. Why do we have to pay 50 bucks to see the women?”

“If we want to rise above the inequality, it’s the women who have to rise up together and say, ‘No more. This is not okay. I deserve exactly what the men have,’” she says. “Standing on that start line [in 2014] gave me the hope that yes, we have the power to effect change. You know, I’m not famous. I’m not wealthy. I’m not an Olympic medalist. But if I helped make this happen, then we all have the power to make change happen.”

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Women’s Tour de France Returns for First Time in 33 Years

Women have pedaled their way onto the course only five other times in the event’s 119-year history.

The world’s most-watched annual sports competition is welcoming women back onto the road, for the first time in over three decades. 

The Tour de France Femmes , an eight-day course spanning 640 miles, kicked off Sunday just as the men’s tour wrapped up.

“Instead of sitting on the couch and watching the Tour de France and seeing men race up these epic climbs and fighting for the yellow jersey, finally they will see [women],” Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, a pro-cyclist of over a decade, told NPR . 

The resurgence of Tour de France Femmes is, in large part, thanks to the pandemic. As in-person sporting events ground to a halt, online fitness and gaming company Zwift launched a virtual Tour de France in 2020, giving not just men but women the opportunity to participate in the race, albeit from their living rooms. 

Zwfit claims more than 16 million people watched the virtual races, with viewership evenly split between the men’s and women’s events.  That spurred the company to sponsor this year’s in-person Tour de France contest for women, as previous attempts stalled because of sparse media coverage and funding. This summer’s race, which features a first-place prize of 250,000 euros (about $256,000), will be broadcast in 190 countries.

“That’s the key to the success of the race, to building that audience, to building future investment and growing the race and keeping it around,” said Kate Veronneau, Zwift’s director of women’s strategy, told NPR. 

Ally Vows to ‘Do It Right’ When it Comes to Supporting Women in Sports

With minimum salary requirements going into place for women on professional cycling teams, the landscape of the sport seems to be changing for the better. Many female athletes, however, continue to have to work second jobs to make ends meet – a phenomenon not unique to women’s cycling. (Imprisoned WBNA star Brittney Griner, for instance, was in Russia in the first place because of the gender pay gap in U.S. sports.)    

Key to improving conditions for women in the sport, and ensuring that women can choose cycling as a viable career, participants say, is making sure that the Tour de France Femmes returns year after year.

“We need the media to show more women in sports so that girls think about more options,” former pro-cyclist Marianne Martin, who won the first women’s Tour de France course in 1984, told The Washington Post . “I mean, if they only see women in fashion, they’re going to only think about fashion. If they see women in sport, and it’s exciting, they’re going to see that as an option.”

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Why does the Giro d'Italia Women still happen at the same time as the Tour de France Hommes?

One of the most important women’s bike races, at exactly the same time as the biggest bike race in the world. What could go wrong?

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News editor at Cycling Weekly, Adam brings his weekly opinion on the goings on at the upper echelons of our sport. This piece is part of The Leadout, a newsletter series from Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here . As ever, email [email protected] - should you wish to add anything, or suggest a topic.

Last week, one of the biggest bike races in the world was taking place. It consisted of a titanic battle between two of the best riders in the sport through a variety of different types of stages, ending in the high mountains. No, not the Tour de France and Tadej Pogačar v Jonas Vingegaard , but the Giro d’Italia Women, and Elisa Longo Borghini v Lotte Kopecky. Longo Borghini won a thrilling race .

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However, I can’t blame you too much if the Giro failed to feature on your radar, it is on at the same time as the all-encompassing Tour de France. The Tour is like a black hole, sucking in all matter that surrounds it, and the Giro is an unfortunate victim of this. For years, it has been the most prestigious women’s stage race on the calendar - until the Tour de France Femmes was created - and yet it has always insisted on running concurrently with the men’s Tour. Just for a rough guide in popularity, the women’s Giro has 19,000 followers on Instagram, while the Tour has 2.5m. It’s not a fair contest.

I know who won each Giro stage, I’ve read the race reports, I’ve seen some highlights, but as someone on the ground at the Tour de France, it would be very possible for the Giro to completely pass me by. The trials and tribulations of covering the Tour are very much real, and they don’t allow for things like watching the Giro live. And I work in cycling for a living, so I can’t imagine what it is like for the casual fan. 

The casual fan, who might be tempted by thrilling stage race action, must be at the front of the mind of race organisers, and yet the Giro has always insisted on its slot in the calendar. While the Vuelta Femenina and the Tour de France Femmes find spots in the Women’s WorldTour calendar that aren’t at the same time as a more popular men’s event, the Giro remains stubborn.

The reasons given have always been twofold: the viewing figures in Italy were higher when the race was shown in a highlights package after the men’s Tour stage that day on Italian TV, and that with a smaller women’s peloton, there are few alternative slots available for the race to run. The former argument seems to belong to a different era. In our age of on-demand streaming and the ability to watch something anytime, anywhere, then surely it makes sense to move the race in the calendar. The latter feels out of date, too, and regardless, a re-shuffle in favour of one of the most prestigious races in the women’s calendar feels achievable with enough impetus. 

The WorldTour calendar is already full to bursting - granted - but a race with the importance of the Giro should be allowed to pick a better slot, perhaps moving to before the Tour, and swapping a couple of events around. It just seems like madness that the Giro, the first women’s Grand Tour, insists on running in mid-July and having less attention as a result. There’s only so much the cycling media can do to big it up when something as huge as the men’s Tour is on at the same time.

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Partly due to branding, partly due to the lineup, and partly due to the calendar, the Tour de France Femmes already feels like a bigger race, and the Giro had a head start of decades. Now under the management of RCS, the organisers of the men’s Giro too, surely it is time for a rethink and a reboot. It just makes no sense. Surely the best cyclists in the world deserve a race that takes the limelight. Surely.

This piece is part of  The Leadout , the offering of newsletters from  Cycling Weekly  and  Cyclingnews.  To get this in your inbox,  subscribe here .

If you want to get in touch with Adam, email [email protected] .

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Adam is Cycling Weekly ’s news editor – his greatest love is road racing but as long as he is cycling on tarmac, he's happy. Before joining Cycling Weekly he spent two years writing for Procycling, where he interviewed riders and wrote about racing. He's usually out and about on the roads of Bristol and its surrounds. Before cycling took over his professional life, he covered ecclesiastical matters at the world’s largest Anglican newspaper and politics at Business Insider. Don't ask how that is related to cycling.

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Lorena Wiebes triumphs in shortened Baloise Ladies Tour stage after massive crash

Urška žigart to join ag insurance-soudal in 2025, reveals patrick lefevere, charlotte kool clinches stage 2 victory at baloise ladies tour as lorena wiebes finishes eighth, pogacar dominates tour de france stage 19 as vingegaard falters, a quick preview look at la picto-charentaise 2024.

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Paris Olympics 2024: Women’s Individual Time Trial Race Preview

Mathew mitchell.

• Published on July 20, 2024
• in Women's Cycling

Paris Olympics 2024: Women’s Individual Time Trial History

The Women’s Individual Time Trial at the Paris Olympics 2024 builds on a rich but relatively short history of women’s Olympic time trials. The event, taking place on a challenging 32 km course through the streets of Paris, continues a tradition that began at the 1996 Atlanta Games. The previous edition, held at the 2020 Summer Olympics on July 28, 2021, around the Fuji Speedway in Shizuoka Prefecture, saw 25 cyclists from 20 nations compete. Annemiek van Vleuten of the Netherlands won the gold medal, setting the fastest times at both intermediate time checks and finishing in under 31 minutes. Van Vleuten’s dominance was clear as she won by 56 seconds over silver medalist Marlen Reusser of Switzerland. Anna van der Breggen , also from the Netherlands, secured the bronze medal.

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Before the last edition, Kristen Armstrong had dominated the event with victories in 2008, 2012 and 2016 to be the most successful rider in the discipline. Before her, Leontien van Moorsel won the race in both 2000 (as her maiden name, Leontien Zijlaard) and also in 2004. This run between the pair meant that only 2 riders had the Olympic gold in the ITT over a period of 20 years! Annemiek van Vleuten has retired since the last Olympics, so we are guaranteed a new victor in the Paris Olympics in 2024. We’re also missing Marlen Reusser who would’ve been a medal favourite. The Swiss rider has been suffering with infections and has made the decision to pull out and reset, rather than race whilst not fully fit.

Previous Winners

2021 Annemiek van Vleuten 2016 Kristin Armstrong 2012 Kristin Armstrong

Paris Olympics 2024: Women’s Individual Time Trial Profile

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Paris Olympics 2024: Women’s Individual Time Trial Contenders

The big favourite for the the Olympic time trial title this time round is Chloe Dygert . The course is flatter than the Tokyo edition and suits the American. There are, as always, caveats about where her form is after a series of injuries this year. She only has 3 UCI race days under her belt from back in March and a series of niggles has disrupted some of the preparations. Recently though, she said she was back hitting numbers she hasn’t seen before and we’ve kinda been here before when she won the Worlds TT last year. Her teammate Taylor Knibb is a triathlete who spent a bit of time on the Trek team. She qualified by winning the US Nats this year after coming 4th the year before. She puts out big watts but isn’t quite as aerodynamically dialled in as rivals. She has an outside chance to medal though thanks to the course.

The Dutch will obviously be in the hunt once more. No Van Vleuten this time obviously but in Ellen van Dijk and Demi Vollering they have potential medal winners for sure. If Van Dijk hadn’t fractured her ankle a few weeks ago , she’d probably be the out and out favourite. She’s won all of the time trials she’s taken part in this year, albeit not always against the strongest opposition. Her ankle fracture threw a spanner in the works but she has said she is back to fitness now despite that. Demi Vollering is a great GC time trialler but in a one-off race isn’t necessarily always on the same level. With a Tour de France Femmes time trial happening in a few weeks too, she will be in her top form against the clock too. She can medal but I think I’d be surprised if it was a gold one.

Grace Brown also has a good shot at a medal at the Paris Olympics. The Aussie won the TT at the Bretagne Ladies Tour and just missed out at the TT in the Giro by a single second to Elisa Longo Borghini on what was a tough, technical end to a time trial course. We saw her finish 2nd by only 6 seconds to Dygert in the Worlds last year, which featured a stiff climb at the end. There’s a bit of climbing on this course but it’s by and large flat. That may see her being behind the likes of Dygert and Van Dijk.

It feels like Lotte Kopecky can do anything at the moment but the Belgian doesn’t quite have a top-level time trial yet. She’s very very good and has podium spots at the Tour de France Femmes time trial and a win at the Simac Ladies Tour TT towards the end of 2023 as well. This year’s she’s the national champion once more but was slightly below par in finishing 5th at the Giro d’Italia Women TT. There’s maybe a chance of a medal on a strong day and top 5 certainly.

The home fans in Paris will be looking at the chances of french hopes Audrey Cordon-Ragot and Juliette Labous. We didn’t get to see them go head to head at the nation championships this year as Labous focused on the road race ( a good call as she won her first RR title ). Cordon-Ragot won the nationals TT to back-up the decision of her spot here after some doubts when it announced due to the form of Evita Muzic. Cordon-Ragot was well back on Van Dijk earlier in the season at Omloop van Borsele whereas Juliette Labous wasn’t too far away from the likes of Kopecky at the recent Giro d’Italia Women time trial. I’d be surprised to see either medal but there’s a chance for a top-5.

Mieke Kröger is a wildcard at the Olympics this time around. The German has pretty much given up road racing this year to focus on the Olympics, both in the TT and on the track. She made some huge gains at the German national championship compared to the same course in 2023. Elevation will always work against her and whilst this course isn’t perfect, it does give her a small chance to medal. Fellow German Antonia Niedermaier is a young rider to keep an eye on but making the top-10 would be a result for her here. We know she has a big engine and has some good results against the clock this year but they’ve generally been on tough hilly courses. At the Giro she finished a bit down and we might have to wait 4 more years before she’s near the top end at the Olympics.

Elisa Longo Borghini is a rider who can certainly get in the mix and be on the podium in this year’s Paris Olympics 2024: Women’s Individual Time Trial Profile. The Italian should’ve been the national champion again this year but got time deducted because her following car was too close. She was up there in the mountain TT at the Tour de Suisse and managed to win the Giro d’Italia Women time trial by just 1 second over Grace Brown . In theory she’s slower than the Dutch pair and Dygert but along with Kopecky, there’s not a massive amount of difference between her and Demi in particular on certain days. The Italian may medal this year, especially if she’s still on her Giro winning performance high.

Brits are probably going to have their work cut out to get a medal in this cycling discipline. Anna Henderson can be good and is the reigning national champion at the moment. She was 2nd in the TT at the European Championships last year , a fair bit behind Marlen Reusser but at the front of a small gaggle of riders like Lotte Kopecky. She could sneak into the top-5 on a strong day but the lower end of the top-10 feels likely. Pfeiffer Georgi isn’t quite as strong at time trials, despite being the U23 national champion in 2022. Her performance in UCI races blow hot and cold and very much depend on the race situation. A top-10 would be a good result for her.

Emma Norsgaard might be hitting the top-10 for Denmark after a history of being just outside of that mark at major championships. Because of the nature of the Olympics and fewer athletes from major countries, the Dane has a chance to sneak in here. The only TT she’s raced this season was the national championships, which she won convincingly enough. Her ceiling is a little bit limited given the opposition but she can make it into the fastest 10 to finish.

It’s a similar boat for the road winner winner at the last Olympics, Anna Kiesenhofer of Austria. She was 6th in the European Championship last year, which feels like the best that is possible here as well. 15th at the Worlds, she’s a little bit course dependent on what she might do. She started winning the smaller one-off TTs like Chrono des Nations last year but is a level below the very best at it at the moment. Christina Schweinberger was a nice surprise on the podium at the European Championships last year and is regularly in and around the same placings as Kiesenhofer. She was 3rd in the Thüringen Ladies Tour time trial stage this year but the lead 2 that day aren’t racing here. Similar to Kiesenhofer, making the top-10 would be a solid result.

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Bummed There’s No Netflix Series About the Tour de France Femmes? Check This Out

If you have any doubts about how important the Tour de France Femmes is for women's pro cycling, watch this.

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The first men’s Tour de France was raced in 1903, with 6 stages covering 2,428 km (1,509 mi). And despite the fact that women have competed on bikes just as long as men, there have only been a few versions of the race for women throughout the 110 year Tour de France history.

The very first edition of the women’s Tour de France happened in 1955, as a one-off event. The 5 stage tour covered 373 km. and saw 41 athletes at the start line. Millie Robinson won, and remained the reigning champion for 29 years—that’s how long it took before there was another version of the Tour for women.

The film points out that from the very beginning, women who raced bikes were looked at as going against the grain. The film includes background information from Isabel Best, author of Queens of Pain . She says that women’s bike racing goes back farther than people realize. “As soon as people were racing bikes there were women racing them.”

And Hannah Ross, author of Revolutions: How Women Changed the World on Two Wheels says in the film, “[For women, the bicycle] represented freedom, independence, self-reliance.” And it still does. But despite the fact that women have wanted to race bikes at the highest level since the beginning, they weren’t taken seriously until very recently. In other words, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

Former competitors such as Denise Kelly, Marilyn Trout (former pro cyclist for Team Canada), and Maria Canins (two-time winner of the Tour de France Femmes for Team Italy), plus Canyon/SRAM Racing’s Elise Chabbey , Kasia Nieuwiadoma , Pauliena Rooijakkers, and Ronny Lauke all speak about the importance of the women’s cycling community.

“The Tour de France is one of the biggest events in the world. When I was little, I would watch it with my brothers on TV. I never thought I would be at this level,” Rooijakkers says. Many women, even from very recently, fantasized about cutting their hair short and sneaking into the men’s tour. That seemed like the only way to ride at the highest level.

As Kelly, Trout, and Canins recall their experiences racing in the 80s, with no team equipment, no support, and kits they had to give back at the end of the race, it’s pretty clear that women have been an afterthought. But that’s finally, finally changing.

In the creation of this film, Canyon has explicitly committed to long-term investment in women’s cycling at the highest level. Their goal is to show the younger generation that there is in fact a place for women in cycling, and that the future is bright.

Micah Ling is a freelance writer who lives in the mountains of Colorado. She splits her free time between mountain biking and trail running.

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Today in Sports - Week Ahead, July 12 - July 18

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1907 — Australasia beats British Isles 3-2 to win the Davis Cup held at Wimbledon. Australasia wins its first David Cup and ends the four-year reign of the British Isles.

1921 — At the annual Harvard-Yale vs. Cambridge-Oxford meet at Harvard Stadium, Harvard’s Edward Gourdin becomes the first to long jump 25 feet. Harvard lists Gourdin’s jump as 25 feet, 3 inches, but the official listing in U.S. Track and Field is 25-2.

1960 — Betsy Rawls becomes the first woman to win the U.S. Women’s Open golf title four times.

1966 — John Pennel pole vaults 17 feet, 6 1/4 inches for the world record in a meet at Los Angeles. It’s the eighth of nine world records he set in the event in his career and his first since 1963.

1976 — The last NFL All-Star game is held and is shortened when thunderstorms hit Chicago. The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the All-Stars 24-0.

1978 — Hollis Stacy wins the U.S. Women’s Open golf championship for the second straight year.

1989 — Mark Calcavecchia wins the British Open, edging Greg Norman and Wayne Grady in a three-man playoff. Calcavecchia, the first American to win the Open in five years, birdies three of the four holes in the playoff.

1989 — Greg Lemond wins his second Tour de France with the closest finish ever, edging Laurent Fignon by 8 seconds. Lemond starts the day 50 seconds behind Fignon and wins the final stage, a 15-mile race against the clock from Versailles to Paris, in 26:57. Fignon finishes the stage 58 seconds slower.

1995 — John Daly wins the British Open at St. Andrews by four strokes in a four-hole playoff with Italy’s Costantino Rocca. Rocca forces the playoff by sinking a 65-foot putt on the 18th hole.

1995 — Miguel Indurain of Spain wins his record fifth consecutive Tour de France. Indurain joins Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault as the other five-time winners.

2000 — Tiger Woods, at 24, becomes the youngest player to win the career Grand Slam with a record-breaking performance in the British Open on the Old Course at St. Andrews. Woods closes with a 3-under 69 for a 19-under 269 total, the lowest score in relation to par at a major championship.

2000 — 87th Tour de France: no winner (Lance Armstrong disqualified).

2006 — Tiger Woods, one month after missing the cut for the first time in a major, becomes the first player since Tom Watson in 1982-83 to win consecutive British Open titles.

2006 — Floyd Landis, pedaling with an injured hip, cruises to victory in the Tour de France, keeping cycling’s most prestigious title in American hands for the eighth straight year.

2009 — Mark Buehrle pitches the 18th perfect game in major league history, a 5-0 win over Tampa Bay.

2012 — Penn State is all but leveled by penalties handed down by the NCAA for its handling of the allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. The NCAA imposes an unprecedented $60 million fine, a four-year ban from postseason play and a cut in the number of football scholarships it can award.

2017 — British cyclist Chris Froome wins his fourth Tour de France.

2019 — Nike’s Jordan Brand signs 2019 NBA #1 draft pick Zion Williamson to richest multiyear sponsorship deal for a rookie in history; estimated 7 years for $75 million.

2021 — The Opening ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games takes place after a one-year delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

2021 — The Cleveland Indians announce the team will be re-named the Guardians.

1908 — John Hayes wins the Olympic marathon in a record of 2 hours, 55 minutes, 18.4 seconds. Italian Dorando Pietri is the first athlete to enter the stadium, but collapses several times before being disqualified when officials help him across the line.

1931 — Paavo Nurmi sets the world record at 2 miles in a meet at Helsinki, Finland, with a time of 8:59.6.

1960 — Jay Hebert beats Jim Ferrier by one stroke to win the PGA golf tournament.

1967 — Don January wins a playoff by two strokes over Don Massengale to win the PGA championship.

1970 — The International Lawn Tennis Association institutes the nine-point tiebreaker rule.

1976 — John Naber of the United States becomes the first swimmer to break the 2-minute barrier in the 200-meter backstroke at the Olympics in Montreal.

1976 — Mac Wilkins of the United States sets an Olympic record in the discus with a toss of 224 feet in Montreal.

1977 — Hollis Stacy wins the U.S. Women’s Open golf championship by two strokes over Nancy Lopez.

1979 — Boston Red Sox Carl Yastrzemski hits his 400th HR.

1998 — Tour de France riders, angered by the drug scandal that has dominated the event, protest by delaying the start of racing for two hours. Armin Meier, a member of the Festina team who was kicked off the tour the previous week, admits to a French radio station that he used a banned drug.

2005 — Lance Armstrong wins his seventh consecutive Tour de France. All of the titles are stripped in 2012 for doping.

2008 — Nancy Lieberman makes a one-game appearance for the Detroit Shock after the 50-year-old Hall-of-Famer signed a seven-day contract earlier in the day. Lieberman, finishes with two assists and two turnovers, surpassing her own record as the oldest player in WNBA history. Lieberman held the record playing at age 39 in 1997 while playing for the Phoenix Mercury.

2009 — Ron Hornaday Jr. holds off a late challenge from Mike Skinner to win the AAA Insurance 200, making him the first driver in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series to win four consecutive races.

2010 — Fourteen-year-old Jim Liu of Smithtown, N.Y., beats Justin Thomas of Goshen, Ky., 4 and 2 to become the youngest U.S. Junior Amateur champion. Liu, who turns 15 next month, is more than six months younger than Tiger Woods when he won the first of his three consecutive U.S. Junior Amateur titles in 1991.

2011 — Cadel Evans wins the Tour de France, becoming the first Australian champion in cycling’s greatest race.

2014 — Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice receives a two-game suspension from the NFL following his offseason arrest for domestic violence. The six-year veteran was arrested following a Feb. 15 altercation in Atlantic City, New Jersey, with then-fiancee Janay Palmer.

2016 — Chris Froome celebrates his third Tour de France title in four years. The British rider finishes safely at the back of the main pack during the final stage, arm-in-arm with his teammates during the mostly ceremonial final stage ending on the Champs-Elysees. Froome, who also won the Tour in 2013 and 2015, becomes the first rider to defend the title since Miguel Indurain won the last of his five straight in 1995. Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven consecutive titles for doping.

2019 — 19-year-old Hungarian swimmer Kristof Milak breaks Michael Phelps’ 10-year-old 200m butterfly record in a time of 1:50.73, 0.78s faster than Phelps.

2020 — The Toronto Blue Jays name Sahlen Field in Buffalo, N.Y. as their temporary home field for the season.

1902 — Jim Jeffries knocks out Bob Fitzsimmons in the eighth round to retain the world heavyweight title.

1941 — Lefty Grove of the Boston Red Sox wins his 300th and last game, beating the Cleveland Indians 10-6.

1956 — Swaps sets an American record in a 1 5/8-mile race at Hollywood Park. Swaps runs the course in 2:38 1-5.

1956 — Jack Burke Jr. defeats Ted Kroll 3 and 2 in the final round to win the PGA championship.

1976 — In Montreal, Edwin Moses of the United States sets an Olympic record in the 400 hurdles with a time of 47.63.

1982 — Janet Anderson wins the U.S. Women’s Open golf title, her first tournament victory.

1999 — 86th Tour de France: Lance Armstrong wins 1st of 7 consecutive Tour de France titles but is later disqualified for drug cheating.

2004 — Copa América Final, Estadio Nacional, Lima: Brazil beats Argentina, 4-2 on penalties; 2-2 after extra time.

2007 — Michael Rasmussen, the leader of the Tour de France, is removed from the race by his Rabobank team after winning the 16th stage. Rasmussen is sent home for violating (the team’s) internal rules. The Danish cyclist missed random drug tests May 8 and June 28, saying he was in Mexico.

2010 — Alberto Contador wins the Tour de France for the third time in four years. Contador holds off a next-to-last day challenge from Andy Schleck of Luxembourg, his runner-up for a second consecutive year.

2010 — Jamie McMurray’s victory in the Brickyard 400 gives owner Chip Ganassi the first team triple crown in American auto racing: winning the Daytona 500, Indianapolis 500 and the Brickyard 400 in the same year. McMurray won the season-opening Daytona 500 in February, and Ganassi IndyCar series driver Dario Franchitti won the Indy 500 in May.

2011 — The NFL Players Association executive board and 32 team reps vote unanimously to approve the terms of a deal to the end the 4½-month lockout. The final pact is for 10 years, without an opt-out clause.

2011 — Taylor Hoagland hits a two-run home run, Valerie Arioto and Megan Langenfeld have RBI singles and the United States beats rival Japan 6-4 to win its fifth straight World Cup of Softball championship.

2012 — Triple jumper Voula Papachristou is kicked off Greece’s Olympic team by the Hellenic Olympic Committee for her comments on Twitter mocking African immigrants and expressing support for a far-right political party.

2015 — Maya Moore scores a record 30 points to lead the West to a 117-112 victory over the East in the WNBA All-Star Game. The league’s reigning MVP scores eight straight points in the final 2 minutes to turn a one-point deficit into a 113-106 advantage.

2021 — USA’s men’s basketball lose to France 83-76 ending their 25-game Olympic winning streak.

French riders ready to make history at Tour de France Femmes

Sprinters, climbers and domestiques - the home riders will be all over their long-awaited Grand Tour

When the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift gets underway this Sunday, it will be a special moment for the whole peloton, but few will feel the importance more than the French riders in its midst. Riders who have grown up spending every July watching the men’s Tour de France , hearing of the women’s versions decades ago, wondering if and when they might have the chance to ride the most well-known cycling race in the world. This year, those riders will finally have their Tour, and the French members of the peloton are ready to make their mark on the race. 

Women’s cycling in France has had a long and varied history, which has included women’s Tours de France in the 1950s and 1980s, and produced stars of the sport from Jeannie Longo to Pauline Ferrand-Prévot. The French contingent of the peloton may not have always been as dominant as their Dutch or Italian opponents - for example, only one French rider, Catherine Marsal, has ever won the Giro d'Italia Donne - but things seem to be changing. 

As well as the veterans of the peloton like Aude Biannic (Movistar Team) and Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Trek-Segafredo), a whole host of young climbers, sprinters and all-rounders are joining the ranks, and already winning at the sport’s highest level. The number of French teams is also growing year-on-year, both a cause and a result of the Tour de France Femmes, as sponsors realise the value of having a presence in the women’s peloton. 

La Grande Boucle, La Course and the return of the women's Tour de France Marion Rousse: Leading a lasting Tour de France Femmes Philippa York: The journey to a Tour de France Femmes

The pre-race conversation may have been largely dominated by talk of Annemiek van Vleuten vs Demi Vollering and Lorena Wiebes vs Elisa Balsamo, but the Tour de France Femmes is a long, eight-day race, with opportunities for every type of rider, and many more stories ready to unfold. With French riders lining up across the 24 teams and across all the different specialities, here are the home riders on which to keep an eye.

Labous, Muzic revel in Vosges

Like its men’s equivalent, the Tour de France Femmes features a significant amount of climbing that will no doubt decide the general classification. With Giro Donne winner Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) looking as strong as ever and Demi Vollering (SD Worx) poised to reap the benefits of months of preparation, the fight for the yellow jersey will be tough, but that’s not to say we won’t see French riders in the mix in the key GC moments. 

The French rider who is best-placed to challenge the two Dutch favourites is Team DSM’s Juliette Labous , who heads to the Tour after a strong performance at the Giro Donne. Team DSM have split ambitions at the Tour, with Lorena Wiebes targeting the sprint days, but after winning atop the Passo Maniva in the Giro, it’s clear Labous is on excellent climbing form to lead their attempt at the overall.

Labous is one of the few riders that has been able to match and indeed beat Vollering in stage races this season, battling the SD Worx rider right to the top of the Lagunas de Neila climb in the Vuelta a Burgos to win the race overall. Though Labous lacks the punch that makes riders like Van Vleuten and Vollering great Classics riders too, the 23-year-old has the makings of a great GC rider. She does well on long climbs, and crucially, is able to back her performances over successive hard days. If she can stay safe in the tougher days as her team try to shepherd Wiebes to sprint wins, Labous should do well on the two big climbing stages and is a contender for the podium.

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As the only French team in the Women’s WorldTour, there will be a big focus on the newly-named FDJ-SUEZ-Futuroscope team when the Tour de France Femmes starts in Paris. Launched in 2006, the team has been a central pillar of women’s cycling in France for the best part of two decades. They won’t be starting this Tour with a French leader - Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig and Marta Cavalli are set to be the team’s numbers one and two - but they will have a strong cast of French riders supporting them. 

One of the best climbers in the team will be 23-year-old Évita Muzic , the former French national champion and FDJ’s developing stage race star. After her breakthrough win on one of the hardest climbing stages of the 2020 Giro Donne, Muzic has continued to improve and performed well as FDJ’s leader in the Spanish block in May, finishing second overall at the Vuelta a Burgos. Since then, she won the Alpes Gresivaudan Classic, and finished third atop Mont Ventoux in the Dénivelé Challenge behind winner and teammate Cavalli. She had a low-key Giro in support of Cavalli, who finished second overall, but will certainly line up as one of the best climbers at the Tour de France Femmes. 

Regardless of what opportunities Labous and Muzic are able to seize this year, two things are clear: there will be French representation on the toughest days of the Tour de France Femmes, and there is a promising crop of riders to contest Tours to come. As a teammate of Annemiek van Vleuten, Aude Biannic is of course fully committed to her Dutch leader’s GC ambitions, but even she is also hoping her compatriots perform well at their first home Grand Tour. 

“Juliette is one of the best chances to do top 5 or podium on the Tour, I hope for her she can do it,” Biannic told Cyclingnews. “Also for Évita, she’s young so she can do something. She’s not the leader of the team, but maybe she can win a stage. She’s not for the GC this year, but for sure in the future we will see Évita try to win the Tour. And Juliette too because she’s also super young, so we have good French riders to play for the GC.”

Fast finishers Verhulst, Le Net 

The overall victory may be the most coveted prize at the Tour de France Femmes, but with sprinter or puncheur-friendly stages dominating the first half of the week, it’s also a big goal for the faster women of the peloton.

After Muzic, FDJ-SUEZ-Futuroscope are only taking one other French rider from their increasingly-internationalised squad in the form of 22-year-old Marie Le Net . Though Le Net will mainly take on a domestique role, she has a fast finish and will be FDJ’s choice of sprinter on the flat days, particularly in the absence of Clara Copponi.

Le Net’s best result this season was seventh at the Tour of Flanders, and she’s coming into the Tour off the back of a string of top-10 results at Nationals, the Mediterranean Games and the U23 European Championships. Le Net is also a proficient climber, so should get through the harder days with more ease than the other sprinters, and her speed ensures the French team have all bases covered across the race.

As the only French team in the WorldTour, FDJ will no doubt receive a warm welcome, but the magnitude of the event - from the roadside fans to the corporate sponsors to the media and television coverage - means all the French riders are expecting an enthusiastic reception from the audience watching on the ground and around the world.

“It’s so big,” said Le Col-Wahoo’s sprinter-puncheur Gladys Verhulst . “It’s the top race for women in France. My family will follow me during the Tour, and lots of people follow me on Facebook and Instagram too. And of course the TV will follow us too, so it’s amazing.”

“I think it’s the biggest event in the world for the men, so I think it’s the same for the women - I think it will be the year’s biggest event.”

For Verhulst, whose team does not have a clear GC contender, the race will be all about taking opportunities and hunting stage wins, with the 25-year-old aiming at being in the mix in the early bunch finishes. Having won the Veenendaal-Veenendaal Classic in May, it’s the one-day style of racing that should suit Verhulst - perhaps the gravel day on stage 4 - but the team have several options to play in the first half of the race.

“The general classification is not for the team, because in the team, there is not a big, big climber and not a big, big sprinter, so it’s difficult for us,” Verhulst said. “But for me, my goal is some stages. I don’t know which ones yet, I’ll speak with Nico [Marche, team DS] about that, but the start of the Tour will be for me. It’s very open.”

The recurring theme among the French riders is that whilst the Tour de France Femmes is a big goal for the whole peloton, it’s extra important for the home riders, and this is no different for Verhulst. 

“I think it’s my second goal of the year, after the Nationals [where she finished second]. I’m very determined, and I’m almost ready for it,” she said. “I’m a little nervous. At the moment, not a lot, but maybe in a few days. Next week the pressure will be more.”

Cordon-Ragot, Biannic, Fournier can do it all

The riders who chase stage victories and strong overall performances may be the ones that make headlines, but there’s also a contingent of riders who will do invaluable - but perhaps less celebrated - work across the week in support of their teammates.

Perhaps the most important French domestique of all is Aude Biannic (Movistar), who will take the start in Paris with the goal of helping her teammate Van Vleuten pull off what would be an historic achievement by winning the Giro and the Tour back-to-back. Whilst the double is the goal, Biannic says that even in its first year, the Tour de France Femmes is already the more important of the two longest races on the calendar.

“I’m more excited because we won already the Giro, so it’s something done,” Biannic said. “It’s not a bonus because for sure it’s more important to win the GC on the Tour, but we have a lot of motivation and we know we can do it.

“I think it’s one of the most important races of the year. Not only because I’m French, but also because for the men it’s a big race and it’s the same organisation.”

For a race to be so important before it’s even been held once is rare, but when that race carries the Tour de France name and has the support of ASO behind it, the attention and prestige was always going to be there from the get-go.

“I think it’s more pressure, with the media and all the TV. I think with the Giro, it’s a big race, but it’s not the same,” Biannic explained. “With the Tour it’s the same organisation and the media are on the race so for sure it’s a big pressure. More for Annemiek, but for the team also because when you go to win, we put a lot of pressure on all the team.”

Despite the pressure, 31-year-old Biannic has a level head about the race, and says she is hoping to be able to enjoy the experience as well as support Van Vleuten in her attempt at victory.

“Now the most important thing is recovery because the preparation, I think it’s done,” she said. “You need to be fresh for the Tour because it’s eight stages and for sure it’s not easy when you need to help someone every day and prepare yourself for the stages, so the most important thing is to be prepared for the fight.”

Van Vleuten’s main rival Vollering will also lean on a French teammate in her tilt for the yellow jersey, as Roxane Fournier brings wisdom and experience to SD Worx’s Tour team. Though riders will have spent months fine-tuning their training and tactics to try to win the Tour, there’s something to be said for having the support of a teammate who has been around the block, and raced for years at the highest level. The race is new for everyone, and the pressure will be heavy on Vollering’s 25-year-old shoulders, but there are few domestiques more committed than Fournier. The 30-year-old’s job at the Tour may not be as visible to those going for stage wins, but will certainly be key for SD Worx.

Perhaps the well-known French rider in the peloton - made even more conspicuous by the fact she will start the Tour wearing the national champion’s jersey - is Audrey Cordon-Ragot . The Trek rider is a veteran of not just French cycling but women’s cycling as a whole, and will finally, in her 15th season as a professional, have the chance to race the Tour de France. Like Fournier, Cordon-Ragot brings heaps of experience to the team, and will have a varied role at the Tour. 

Without a top-level climber in their ranks, Trek-Segafredo are taking a multi-pronged approach to the race, targeting sprints with Balsamo, harder days with Elisa Longo Borghini, and why not breakaways with the rest of their talent-packed team? Cordon-Ragot is in excellent form, having just won both the time trial and road race at French nationals, and finishing third overall at the Baloise Ladies Tour. She will definitely have team duties to fulfill, but it would be no surprise to see the tricolore jersey on the attack at some point next week.

Cofidis leads French teams

As well as the growing contingent of French riders scattered across WorldTour teams, ASO have replicated the time-honoured tradition from the men’s race of inviting four French Continental teams. Arkéa Procycling and Cofidis are perhaps expected inclusions - both teams ride a significant WorldTour calendar usually - but Stade Rochelais Charente-Maritime and St Michel-Auber93 are true wildcards, small teams being given a chance in the biggest of races. For St Michel-Auber93, the step is particularly huge: the Tour will be only their second WorldTour race ever, their first being RideLondon in May.

With the GC and the bunch sprints possibly an ask too big for the four French continental teams, most of these squads will start the Tour with breakaways and top-10s in their sights. Cofidis may have the best chance at the overall, albeit with the German climber Clara Koppenburg not a French rider, and will unfortunately be missing one of their best riders Cedrine Kerbaol , who injured her ankle pre-race. But even without big favourites, these teams certainly won’t be lacking in motivation to show themselves on the world’s biggest stage.

What is perhaps more important for the French teams, though, is what the Tour de France Femmes will mean for them and for women’s cycling in France. The effect is already being seen: new teams, new sponsors, even new races. If this is already happening before the race enjoys its first edition, the long-term effect on French cycling could be transformative. 

“I’m pretty sure the Tour de France will help a lot of teams because sponsors like Omega now come to the teams,” Biannic said. ”Also almost all the men’s teams have women’s teams now, so in France it’s very important towards the Tour de France. We have at the moment FDJ and Arkéa, and maybe in the future every men’s team will have a women’s team. So for sure the Tour helps a lot for the sponsors, for the teams, for it’s very important for developing cycling in France.”

For riders like Biannic, Cordon-Ragot and Fournier, the arrival of the Tour de France Femmes may feel like the end of a journey: a milestone finally ticked off, the culmination of a long campaign to have this big race back. But for their younger compatriots, the race very much marks the start of the next step in French cycling. The beginning of a limitless set of opportunities and fertile ground for the next generation of riders to develop and grow. 

The French riders will want to leave their mark on this year’s race, but their hopes for the Tour de France Femmes will stretch far beyond this July. 

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Matilda Price is a freelance cycling journalist and digital producer based in the UK. She is a graduate of modern languages, and recently completed an MA in sports journalism, during which she wrote her dissertation on the lives of young cyclists. Matilda began covering cycling in 2016 whilst still at university, working mainly in the British domestic scene at first. Since then, she has covered everything from the Tour Series to the Tour de France. These days, Matilda focuses most of her attention on the women’s sport, writing for Cyclingnews and working on women’s cycling show The Bunnyhop . As well as the Women’s WorldTour, Matilda loves following cyclo-cross and is a recent convert to downhill mountain biking.

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