The rise and rise of the Tour de France Femmes
I know I’m a little late to the party, but last week I attended the final stage of the Tour de France Femmes in the French Alps, and it was amazing.
I’ve attended lots of bike races, but I’ve never seen such huge crowds at a women’s pro bike race. It was unbelievable and made my heart sing.
I was in France as a guest of Cervélo to attend the launch of a new road bike model, and they arranged for the media group to attend the final stage of the race with the Visma | Lease a Bike, a team that Cervélo sponsors. We travelled throughout the stage in a bright yellow team van and were treated like minor celebrities. It was fortunate that new French hero Pauline Ferrand-Prévot was leading the race, and it also helped that she was in her home country. Plus, it was a Sunday. But all that aside, the crowds were staggering.
Many held signs aloft to encourage Pauline. Allez, Pauline was the most common, and they were homemade by the small French children who waved them about. I read a comment from one of the Aussie riders that Pauline’s name was ringing in everyone’s ears after the stage!
But back to the race. The racing was exciting, and our knowledgeable driver was able to get us to several roadside stops along the way. There’s nothing more exciting than cheering the Aussie riders along when you’re just a metre or so away from them. I hope Sarah Gigante, who was in the lead group, heard my ‘Go Sarah’. She did an amazing job to finish sixth overall on GC.
All records were broken in TV audiences in France and beyond, too. I hope this will encourage the race organiser, the A.S.O., and the TV network to broadcast the whole stages in the future. Currently, with the men’s Tour de France, the entire stage is shown on TV all around the world, but for the women, we only see from around 70 km to go each stage.
After the race had finished, we waited by the team bus to see Pauline return to celebrate with her teammates and the extended team support crew. She was genuinely thrilled with her win, and her teammates were clearly ecstatic to be a part of it. My fangirl moment was seeing Marianne Vos up close. I’ve followed her career for many years. She’s a legend, and she and others played a major role in the GC victory. Cycling is an amazing sport in that the team is so integral to the victory, but only one person stands on the top step of the podium.
I’d like to acknowledge the title sponsor of the race, Zwift who have backed it for the past four years, and a I believe played a major role in resurrecting a women’s Tour de France.
But most of all, I’d like to pay tribute to the women who lobbied hard for many years. Firstly, it was the plucky and determined riders who participated in the original women’s Tour in the 1980s (watch the fantastic doco Breakaway Femmes: The Forgotten Tour De France if you haven’t already). Then there were the group that called themselves Le Tour Entier (the whole tour), including the aforementioned Marianne Vos, some 12 years ago, who petitioned the A.S.O., and eventually got what they wanted, after the half-arsed attempt with La Course by Le Tour.
And while there is much kudos to Zwift for relaunching the race, we also need to acknowledge many others who lobbied for its return. In 2013, professional cyclists Kathryn Bertine, Marianne Vos (who will race for the fourth time in this year’s TdFF), Emma Pooley, and professional triathlete Chrissie Wellington formed an activist group called Le Tour Entier the whole tour) to petition ASO to launch a women’s Tour de France. In response, the ASO launched La Course by Tour de France in 2014, which was more like a women’s cycling demonstration event than a stage race. We now have a nine-stage women’s Tour thanks to these women and many others.
I want to thank the A.S.O. for these fantastic images. They are magnifique! I hope you enjoy them.
