Whether you are glued to the post to see 183 on in pursuit of Tadej Pogacar or that you could hardly digest the elimination of tricolor footballers from the European championship, no time to recover from his excitations, his emotions, his disappointments: it left for a tour.
For its fourth edition, the large female version loop is in the shape of a huge diagonal, an almost straight line of 1,168 kilometers between Brittany and the Alps, passing through Poitiers, Clermont and Chambéry. The 154 runners, divided into 22 training of seven cyclists, have an appointment on Saturday morning in the prefecture of Morbihan to compete on the nine stages asphalt (against eight in August 2024).
On the program: two stages in the plain, two in the middle of the mountain, two in high mountains, three rugs and a final scheduled for Sunday August 3 at altitude on the heights of Châtel, the last village of Val d’Abondance, which makes it more like to taste cheese than to climb on a bicycle. Each thing.
For runners, advances but still path
But moreover, why does the peloton have thirty runners less than that of men? Why do they travel “only” nine stages and not twenty?
Women’s cycling is still in full structuring and if giant steps have been carried out in recent years at the highest level with the establishment of a collective agreement to respect labor law, minimum and evolving wages, the semi-professional and amateur sector is struggling to keep pace, especially in parallel, the number of licensees at the French cycling federation caps around 10 %.
So, it was notably decided that the arrivals would be later in order to gain visibility the runners with the general public and in the 190 countries retransmitting the competition.
A rich idea that we really want to link with the hectic final of the last edition at the top of the Alpe-d’Huez, still in all the heads of enthusiasts. The tears of joy of Kasia Niewiadoma (canyon-sram), crowned for four small seconds, cut with the tears of spite of the Queen Demi Vollering, then at SD-World.
The Dutchman, owner of the title, had dropped a few days before and lost precious minutes in the general classification, yielding the Polish yellow jersey. A delay that she had never managed to fill …
A raging epilogue for the one who served as a big favorite in 2025. Last week, on her networks, Demi Vollering also greeted the male peloton’s decision to wait for Tadej Pogacar after a fall, thus avoiding “taking” him time in time.
Proof that bitterness is still well hung on the guts of the one that has been shining on stages races since the start of the season and, frankly, as the 28-year-old cyclist joined the only French formation at the World Tour level last fall, namely the FDJ-Suez, the most chauvinous stirring with impatience that she concretizes her revenge on August 3 (or before!).
Especially since half a vollering can count on a very complete group with solid partners, and particularly the French women avoided Muzic and Juliette Labous, faithful of the Top 10 of the Tour.
The ambitious behind the favorite
Behind half a vollering, the contenders accumulate. On the side of Visma-Lease A Bike, it was around Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, crowned on Paris-Roubaix and in mountain biking at the 2024 Olympic Games, that the training chose to bet with the objective for “PFP” to win the competition within three years.
The Rémoise will count on the inexhaustible Marianne Vos, 38 years old, to reach the summits. Elisa Longo Borghini (Team Uae-Adq), who won the Giro in front of Marlen Reusser (Movistar), could also draw out of the game just like the Belgian Lotte Kopecky (SD World), who has kept her title of world champion last September.
Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck), designated best young in 2024 for his first big loop, will want to continue on his momentum while the Breton Cédrine Kerbaol (6e Last year) will want to shine on its land. They will have 17,240 meters of elevation gain to gauge, be doubted and finally to decide.
