How to follow the women’s racing scene beyond the Tour de France Femmes
By all accounts, this year’s Tour de France Femmes (TdFF) was an outstanding success. Thousands of roadside fans, millions of TV/screen viewers, tonnes of social media post engagement, and so on and so on. Bravo to the riders and the teams.
A special shoutout to the riders who didn’t make it on to the podium, whose names you’ve never heard of, whose goal was to finish the race. For us mere mortals, it’s hard to understand just how difficult it is to get to the start line, and then a level up to complete the whole race. One of those riders is Aussie rider Lucie Fityus, who came 112th out of 115 riders who finished. Twenty-five year old Lucie began her pro career last year and didn’t make it past Stage 2 of last year’s TdFF because she missed the time gap. Chapeau, Lucie.
You may also notice that I don’t include the name of the chief sponsor of the race who has cleverly woven their name into the official title (I’m talking about Zwift). That’s not because I don’t admire their involvement in the race, but because I think they get too much kudos for its existence. In all the interviews and stories I read about the Tour de France Femmes, they get almost all the credit for ‘restarting’ the Tour de France for women. What about Kathryn Bertine, Marianne Vos, and Emma Pooley, who co-founded the Le Tour Entier movement in 2013 to pressure Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) into creating a women’s stage race? And what about the ASO themselves!
Now I’ve got all that off my chest, the main reason I’m writing about the TdFF is to urge you to keep up the enthusiasm for the women’s pro cycling scene beyond this race.
Don’t tune out of women’s cycle racing just yet. Even though there isn’t much TV coverage of women’s racing, you can still follow these amazing women, primarily on social media channels like Instagram.
Here are a few races you can watch in the coming months:
Tour of Britain Women – 19–23 August – live-streamed on SBS
Classic Lorient Agglomération – 29 August
UCI Road World Championships – Women’s Elite Road Race – 26 September – hopefully live-streamed on SBS but yet to be confirmed
Tour of Chongming Island – 13–15 October
Tour of Guangxi – 18 October
And here are some of my favourite international female riders who you can follow on Instagram. Please find others and follow them too.
And here are a few Aussies:
Niche sports like women’s cycling need fans to work harder to keep up with the news. Sadly, the only story that made the Sydney Morning Herald during the recent TdFF was about ‘padded bras’!! Should I be happy that they’ve moved beyond stories about bad crashes? Maybe??
Share your thoughts on the subject of the TdFF and women’s top-level cycling via Comments or the Women Who Cycle social channels.
Happy 15th Birthday to Women Who Cycle. This blog began on this day in 2011. I’m giving myself a big pat on the back for maintaining this huge labour of love for so long. Long may it continue.
