The third version of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift guarantees to be a memorable one, with the primary overseas Grand Depart within the Netherlands, extra possibilities to take stage wins at biking’s largest race and a historic finale up Alpe d’Huez all on the menu.
Flat routes in The Hague and Rotterdam, a double stage on day two and a Classics parcours en path to Liège deliver the race again into France on day 4 earlier than the GC motion seems set to kick off proper from the Vosges to Le Grand Bornand and on the well-known 21 bends up l’Alpe.
Racing has been moved from its authentic late July spot to mid-August so France might account for the Paris Olympics, that means there are additional kilometres within the legs with the anticipation constructing greater than ever all through the lengthy season.
The stakes are excessive and there’s something on provide for everybody because the peloton race for the yellow chief’s jersey sponsored by LCL, inexperienced factors jersey sponsored by Škoda, polka-dot mountains jersey sponsored by E.Leclerc, white greatest younger rider jersey sponsored by Liv, crew classification sponsored by Krys, most aggressive rider sponsored by Teisseire, plus after all the stage victories sponsored by Zwift.
Cyclingnews highlights the most important speaking as we look forward to the eight phases of racing, ending with a double hors categorie summit finale on August 18, that may crown the winner of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
Get limitless entry to all of our protection of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes – together with breaking information and evaluation reported by our journalists on the bottom from each stage because it occurs and extra. Discover out extra.
Giro, Olympics, and Tour, oh my!
There is no such thing as a disputing the jam-packed summer season schedule that has taken the skilled ladies’s peloton throughout the Giro d’Italia, the Paris Olympic Video games and into the Tour de France Femmes.
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Competing in back-to-back Grand Excursions and including the magnitude of the quadrennial Olympics in between can be a troublesome ask for even probably the most achieved racers.
Subsequently, riders who had been chosen to signify their nations on the Olympic Video games have additionally been compelled to select and select the Grand Excursions they might deal with; some have opted to race all three occasions, whereas others have skipped one as a result of it wasn’t inconceivable to carry peak kind for 5 or 6 weeks and anticipate prime performances.
The Tour de France Femmes’s defending champion, Demi Vollering, selected to skip the Giro d’Italia Girls this 12 months despite the fact that she would have been one of many favourites to win the general title after she had already gained La Vuelta Femenina and has continued a stage racing profitable streak by means of Itzulia Girls, Vuelta a Burgos and Tour de Suisse.
She as a substitute opted to preview the Tour de France Femmes route whereas on a coaching camp in her camper van earlier than competing on the Olympic Video games in Paris. She heads to the Tour in prime kind, possible well-recovered from a searing spring marketing campaign and able to deal with her yellow-jersey defence.
Final 12 months’s Tour de France Femmes mountains classification winner and runner-up, Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM), selected the same pathway, skipping the Giro and racing on the Olympics and the Tour.
However, Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) determined to deal with the Giro d’Italia, the place she secured the general victory on dwelling soil. Whereas she was dissatisfied together with her efficiency on the Olympic Video games, she now heads to the Tour de France as a darkhorse contender, with the crew more likely to deal with Gaia Realini for the GC.
Regardless of the pathway riders have chosen to take to get to the Tour de France Femmes, we will all anticipate to see an in-form peloton and an exhilarating battle for the yellow jersey.
Muzic and Labous lead French hopes
Half of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes could happen outdoors of France as Rotterdam performs host to the primary overseas Grand Départ, nonetheless, dwelling French hopes will probably be seeking to star and internet each the primary stage win and podium end on GC.
FDJ-SUEZ’s Evita Muzic and DSM-Firmenich PostNL’s Juliette Labous would be the key hopes for the general, having been two of the very best climbers in latest seasons. Muzic can be one of many few riders to beat defending champion Demi Vollering in a summit end this season, whereas Labous has taken fourth and fifth on GC on the previous two editions of the Tour.
They’ll be teammates subsequent 12 months as Labous joins the French squad FDJ-SUEZ however for 2024, they are going to be vying for the highest spot for a house rider and hoping they’ll write themselves into historical past on one in every of France’s most well-known climbs – the legendary Alpe d’Huez.
The primary 16 phases of the Tour de France Femmes have seen 12 totally different winners from the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany however none but from France, with the closest being Muzic with second on the gravel stage behind Marlen Reusser.
An absence of French success has additionally been current all through the jersey competitions, with Cedrine Kerbaol’s greatest younger rider win in 2023 being the one French victory of any type because the ladies’s Tour de France was revived as a stage race in 2022.
Kerbaol (Ceratizit-WNT) will as soon as once more be on the Tour this season, though ineligible to defend her white jersey. Nevertheless, she makes up half of a complete host of French expertise chasing that first stage win, corresponding to veteran TT skilled Audrey Cordon-Ragot (Human Powered Well being), former nationwide champion Victoire Berteau (Cofidis) and 19-year-old super-talent Marion Bunel (St Michel – Mavic – Auber93 WE).
Bunel is definitely set to be a giant a part of France’s future in ladies’s racing having already proven she has the flexibility to take action as an adolescent, taking fifth on Jebel Hafeet on the UAE Tour in February which landed her fifth general behind the likes of Lotte Kopecky and Neve Bradbury. She then went on to beat Muzic uphill to Chamrousse on the Alpes Gresivaudan Basic in simply her neo-pro season, so will probably be one to observe.
May this be France’s 12 months to star at its dwelling Tour de France Femmes?
Wiebes, Vos and Kool to dash for dwelling yellow jersey
A gap stage within the Netherlands supplies the right probability for the quickest ladies in biking to battle it out on flat roads of the nation which dominates ladies’s biking for the primary yellow jersey. Dutch stars will probably be among the many probably candidates: Lorena Wiebes, Marianne Vos and Charlotte Kool. However who amongst them can thrill dwelling followers with a house? Or will they be upset by the likes of Italy’s Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek)?
Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) has been the celebrity of sprinting nearly ever since turning professional in 2018 with Parkhotel Valkenburg, with enormous success at DSM, earlier than cementing her title because the quickest sprinter with an enormous transfer to ladies’s biking’s prime crew – SD Worx-Protime – final season.
Whereas she was challenged by her former DSM teammate and final lead-out rider Charlotte Kool (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) for a lot of the 2023 season, sickness dominated Kool out of a lot of their scheduled early season duels, and Wiebes has additionally merely been stronger.
It’s been a 12 months of actual wrestle for the DSM rider with simply 1 win added to her palmarès in comparison with the 18 Wiebes has netted, with six of these seeing Kool take second behind her compatriot.
Wiebes has not simply stored profitable on the similar charge in recent times however expanded her property past simply pure bunch finishes. She’s a greater than succesful Classics rider, with an awesome capability to outlive over climbs and nonetheless dash whereas the purer sprinters like Kool drop behind. This might be key on the undulating fifth stage to Amnéville.
Levels 1 and a couple of would be the enormous goal for Kool and Wiebes however they gained’t be unchallenged, removed from in, in truth, with ladies’s and maybe biking’s biggest ever rider Marianne Vos additionally aiming for dwelling wins within the The Hague and Rotterdam.
After taking two stage wins and the inexperienced factors jersey within the inaugural version of the Tour de France Femmes, Vos struggled to seek out prime kind in 2023 and suffered ache and an absence of energy in her left leg for which she underwent iliac artery surgical procedure.
2024 has seen her nicely again to her greatest, beating Lotte Kopecky to win Omloop Het Nieuwsblad for (amazingly) the primary time in her profession, earlier than occurring to take wins at Dwars door Vlaanderen, Amstel Gold Race – forward of Wiebes, and the Vuelta Femenina the place she netted two stage wins and the factors jersey once more.
Whereas Balsamo seems like the one rider quick sufficient to problem the Dutch trio ought to she take the beginning, Emma Norsgaard’s win from the break on stage 6 into Blagnac finally 12 months’s race provides the right blueprint for attacking as a substitute of ready to get beat by Wiebes. It ought to be an interesting dash battle in these opening two Netherlands phases however watch out for potential crosswinds.
Ending on a excessive atop Alpe d’Huez
The organisers of the Tour de France Femmes have constantly raised the bar for every version, particularly on the subject of its mountain passes. In 2022, the occasion was routed up Le Markstein and La Tremendous Planche des Belles Filles, in final 12 months it took on Col d’Aspin and the Col du Tourmalet.
This 12 months, they’ve upped the ante but once more, with the race set to finish on a excessive atop the most iconic ascent in Tour de France historical past—Alpe d’Huez.
“Nicely, the legend of the Tour de France is usually written in its mountain passes. So it does not get higher than Alpe d’Huez,” race director Marion Rousse informed Cyclingnews in an unique interview that featured as a part of our countdown to the third version of the Tour de France Femmes.
“It is a climb recognized all through the world, and with its 21 numbered bends, has been a dramatic stage within the males’s Tour. In fact, the winner can have her title written on one of many bends.”
Alpe d’Huez has been the positioning of many biking battles all through the boys’s Tour de France and has additionally appeared in choose editions of the earlier variations of the ladies’s race.
The climb has additionally served as a profession catalyst for a lot of riders within the ladies’s peloton, who had both watched the boys’s peloton race up its unforgiving switchbacks or had frolicked coaching on its slopes.
Not does the ladies’s peloton must dream about racing up Alpe d’Huez as a part of an official ASO-run ladies’s Tour de France; they are going to deal with it in actuality on the finish of stage 8 finale on August 18, the place the winner of the yellow jersey will probably be topped.
In step with historical past, every of the 21 hairpin bends is known as after not less than one rider. The twenty first bend is known as after Fausto Coppi, who gained the Tour de France in 1949 and 1952. Different riders honoured with bends embody Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, and Bernard Hinault.
It stays to be seen who will triumph on Alpe d’Huez and have her title etched into one in every of its bends on the 2024 Tour de France Femmes.
Can anybody problem Demi Vollering?
After shedding out solely to the good Annemiek van Vleuten within the first version of the Tour de France Femmes, Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) reached her full potential on the second try, dominating the uphill terrain to say the yellow jersey by 3:03 over teammate Lotte Kopecky final 12 months.
2023 was by far her greatest season, with an historic Ardennes triple coming alongside her general victory on the Tour. Her begin to 2024 wasn’t fairly as profitable, with it taking, by her requirements, an age to internet her first victory – 13 race days
Vollering went the entire Spring Classics with out a win, regardless of podium finishes at Strade Bianche, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, nonetheless, shortly proved she was nonetheless on prime with a run of gorgeous stage race performances in Could and June.
Vuelta España Femenina, Itzulia Girls, Vuelta a Burgos and the Tour de Suisse appearances led to eight WorldTour stage wins, 4 general GC titles and a return to absolute peak kind for the Dutch climber. Vollering was on prime once more with nobody presenting a lot of a problem.
There have been sturdy rides by the likes of Evita Muzic and Neve Bradbury to take strong podium finishes, nonetheless, the general titles by no means appeared doubtful for Vollering, who heads into the Tour because the heavy favorite.
The reply then, it could appear, lies with ways, not legs. Canyon-SRAM and Lidl-Trek have proven nice ingenuity of their challenges to unsettle the dominant SD Worx-Protime’s run of wins, however knocking Vollering off prime spot is an entire different check.
Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) and Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM) are two of the savviest bike racers and on groups prepared to strive all the pieces on the uncovered Dutch roads, difficult Classics terrain to Liège and the potential for a raid within the Vosges on stage 6.
It’s but to be seen who will emerge as Vollering’s key contender, nonetheless, she most undoubtedly will not simply be afforded a pink carpet journey to the foot of Alpe d’Huez the place she will be able to journey off to glory.
