Tour de France Femmes a ticket for women’s cycling to festival in enchanted woods

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Demi Vollering has been one of the standout performers (Picture: Getty)

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does the Pope wear a funny hat? That’s not it. Wait. If professional cyclists ride an attacking, thrilling race and no one is watching, does it even count? That’s the one.

And fortunately, right now, we don’t need to have an answer. Because after half a season of exciting women’s cycling which has brought us a dominant SD Worx team, a return to racing for former world champion Lizzie Deignan after her second child and a Vuelta Femenina which saw the world’s top two stage racers fall out over the timing of a pee-stop, we get the chance to talk about women’s racing again, back in the mainstream.

Because for the second year in a row, fans suffering the inevitable slump from the end of the men’s Tour de France can move straight on to the women’s.

Arguably the greatest value of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, is the chance to carry those eyeballs over from men’s racing, the chance to discuss and dissect team tactics in the way we do with the men and the opportunity to treat the sport as the grown-up endeavour that it is.

We are near the end of the second edition of this incarnation of the women’s Tour de France, and I’ll admit I didn’t think the sport needed it. I felt the reluctance to stage the race was evidence of a lack of commitment that would only damage the sport’s image.

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We have incredible racing to enjoy for the rest of the year, for those who care to look, and I believed a better prioritywould be to invest media coverage and sponsor support in the races that had been wanted all along. I was wrong.

Because it turns out nothing compares to the fanfare of the Tour de France. While women’s racing largely plays out in the forgotten forest for much of the year, the Tour is a ticket to the festival in the enchanted woods.

And it’s not so much the racing, exciting and interesting as it’s been. It is not the curiosity of the dominant SD Worx team not conforming to the male tradition of working hard on the front of the bunch to defend the yellow jersey, as many feel they should have been doing with early race leader Lotte Kopecky.

It’s not that Team DSM Firmenich have given SD Worx their usual free pass by working to bring back the break for a sprint, even as they harm their own chances of a stage win for the opportunity to be in the mix.

It’s the fact we have the platform and occasion to explain it all. We have the time and space to pull it apart. No longer do we simply applaud the women for turning up.

We analyse, criticise, call out. We may in turn be wrong, but so turn the wheels of punditry and they’re rolling along the wheels of France right now as the women’s sport deserves. Not that I was entirely incorrect with my initial fears.

Annemiek Van Vleuten is the defending champion

Annemiek Van Vleuten is the defending champion (Picture: Getty)

The prominence of the Tour de France Femmes has arguably had a detrimental effect on other races.

I’m convinced the trailblazing British stage race The Women’s Tour has suffered because of a concentration of efforts and sponsorship on the Tour de France Femmes.

The race, the first to offer equal prize money for men and women, has been forced into a hiatus because of a lack of funding, and will only return if money flows out more evenly from what is now the premier event of the calendar.

We have seen other races go by the wayside, despite the hope a women’s Tour de France would bring increased investment across the board.

The sad fact is none of those races enjoyed the attention beyond the sport itself that the French race does. A stage win here is so much more prestigious than a victory at any other race.

Tadej Pogacar salutes yellow jersey winner Jonas Vingegaard at the climax to the men's Tour

Tadej Pogacar salutes yellow jersey winner Jonas Vingegaard at the climax to the men’s Tour (Picture: Getty)

We no longer roll off the Champs Elysees and into an abyss of Tour-less summer days, we have the perfect comedown antidote with whole new teams, narratives and racing dynamics.

It just so happens that this year, we have a mirroring storyline too, with two riders seen to be head and shoulders above the rest, defending champion Annemiek van Vleuten and Demi Vollering taking the roles of Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar, with a close battle third.

The advantage in womens’ racing is that we have smaller teams to control the race and a different tradition of attacking riding.

More often than not it’s altogether more interesting and dynamic than men’s racing but we don’t always have the opportunity and platform to enjoy it.

If the Tour de France Femmes gives us nothing else, the visibility is value enough. The men’s Tour is over. Long live the Tour.


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