Tour de France Femmes 2024
Teams
AG Insurance-Soudal Team
Ashleigh Moolman, 38, has been a perennial fixture at the sharp end of races for over a decade and is showing no signs of slowing down. Sixth last year overall at the Tour, she enjoyed a good spring – high places rather than wins – and headed into Grand Tour season in fine fettle. All being well, she’ll lead the team again in France. Aussie Sarah Gigante, who’d struggled at Movistar, won the Tour Down Under in her first run-out for her new team and is a fantastic climber.
Dream Tour
Top 5 on GC for Moolman – her best result yet – and a first stage win would be a superb return
Arkéa B&B Hotels Women Pro Cycling
Like other wildcards picked for the race, it’s this team’s French nationality and home on the European tour that explains their inclusion, rather than sporting factors – 38th in the UCI rankings suggests far more worthy recipients. The team lost Canadian climber Clara Emond for 2024 to EF Education-Cannondale, and in her debut season as a professional, she finished 23rd on GC at the Tour de France Femmes, the top result for the team.
Dream Tour
Veteran Emilia Fahlin, the current (and four-time) Swedish national champion, to figure prominently
Canyon//SRAM Racing
Kasia Niewiadoma will benefit from Annemiek van Vleuten’s retirement. This strong climber endured a drought of wins up until this spring, when she bested Demi Vollering and the rest on the Mur de Huy to win La Flèche Wallonne. It’ll give her huge confidence heading into this race, where she’s finished third in each of the previous editions. The team also have time trial world champ Chloe Dygert on their books and 2022 junior world road champ Zoe Bäckstedt is a star in the making.
Dream Tour
Niewiadoma showed at Fleche Wallone she can beat Vollering over a day, but how about stages?
Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling Team
23-year-old Breton Cédrine Kerbaol finished 12th overall at the Tour last year, a fantastic result that secured her the white jersey of best young rider, holding it from start to finish. In the same year she became French national time trial champion, marking her out as a serious talent for now and the future. It’s the team’s first year as a Women’s WorldTour team and Kerbaol will likely get team leadership duties once again.
Dream Tour
Kerbaol to break into the top 10 and reinforce her result from last season
Cofidis
This French Continental team has the 2023 French national road race champion Victoire Berteau, 23, on their books and the youngster had a strong first half of the year, with top 15s in Paris-Roubaix, Tour of Flanders and Gent-Wevelgem, and can be in the mix for stages at the Tour. Two riders who finished last year’s Tour for Cofidis have left: Clara Koppenburg, who rode to 15th at last year’s race, has moved onto EF-Education-Cannondale, while Rachel Neylan has retired.
Dream Tour
A first Tour de France Femmes win to match the resurgence of the men’s team at the race
EF Education-Cannondale
This new American Continental team pulled off a coup with the signing of Alaska’s Kristen Faulkner. She’s enjoyed several high-profile wins in recent seasons, including a stage of the La Vuelta Femenina in 2024 and, memorably, the Queen Stage of the 2022 Giro, where she won alone from a long-range attack. Veronica Ewers finished 9th at the Tour in the same year and both will have big ambitions on a team that will be punching above its weight at the race this August.
Dream Tour
A stage win for Kristen Faulkner to complete the hat-trick in the major women’s tours
FDJ-Suez
The French team will hope to head into the race with the double-pronged threat of Marta Cavalli (2nd at the Giro in 2022) and Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (7th at the Tour two years running, plus a 2022 stage win). Both, however, endured disrupted first halves to the season, Cavalli injuring her pelvis in training in early February and Uttrup Ludwig fracturing her sacrum on the cobbles of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in late February. Both will hope to be at 100% come the start in Rotterdam.
Dream Tour
Cavalli and Uttrup Ludwig to rediscover their 2022 Giro and Tour stage-winning heroics
Fenix-Deceuninck
Young cyclo-cross star Puck Pieterse, 22, transferred her considerable off-road talent to the road in the spring with a run of fine top 10s, including 6th at the Tour of Flanders. Whether her race programme extends to a debut in the Tour de France Femmes remains to be seen. Fenix-Deceuninck will want a repeat of its 2023 race, when Yara Kastelijn won the stage to Rodez, while Christina Schweinberger, third in last year’s Worlds TT in Glasgow, has pedigree for the time trial.
Dream Tour
Puck Pieterse to hold her form all the way to a triumphant Tour stage win
Human Powered Health
The team’s top-performing rider over the last couple of seasons, Daria Pikulik of Poland, is still to make her debut in the Tour de France Femmes, so the sprinter will be expecting a ride this August. For the overall, Italian Barbara Malcotti led the line well last year, with solid performances in both the Giro (19th) and Tour (24th), and may well do so again. Audrey Cordon-Ragot, a time trial specialist, will be looking for a top 10 in the Tour’s TT, after just missing out last year.
Dream Tour
A stage win on debut for Pikulik, the first for the team in the race
Laboral Kutxa-Euskadi
The Basque team is one of three making their Tour de France Femmes debut in 2024 and will be buoyed by the experience within its ranks. Spanish climber Ane Santesteban, 33, signed from Jayco-AlUla in the winter. As well as a three-time Spanish road race champion, she finished 8th overall at last year’s Tour, including 7th on the seventh stage that finished at the Tourmalet summit. She’ll be eyeing the final on Alpe d’Huez with glee.
Dream Tour
A podium for Santesteban on one of the two mountain stages
Lidl-Trek
After a difficult 2023, including a late abandonment at the Tour de France Femmes with a skin infection while sitting 4th overall, Elisa Longo Borghini enjoyed a wonderful spring, the highlight a second Tour of Flanders win nine years after her first. She has a best Tour finish of 6th in 2022 and is capable of higher. Diminutive Gaia Realini finished 3rd at the Giro in 2023 and may get her debut this year. Stage hunting alongside them is Lizzie Deignan, who’ll be coming off another big target at the Paris Olympics road race.
Dream Tour
A place on the podium for either Longo Borghini or Realini and a stage win for Deignan
Liv AlUla Jayco
The team for 2024 is a coming together of Jayco-AlUla and Liv Racing Teqfind, creating a new entity from teams that weren’t firing. Wins remained rare at the start of the year, but high placings in the biggest races, particularly from Italian one-day specialist Letizia Paternoster, bode well for the summer. 40-year-old Mavi Garcia, 7th at the Giro in 2023, will likely lead the team in France, alongside Paternoster on the hunt for stages on the f latter days in the Netherlands.
Dream Tour
A stage win to cap a renewed sense of purpose on this amalgamated team
Lotto Dstny Ladies
With a couple of the middle stages of the race heading through Belgium, it’s no surprise to see a Belgian team among the wildcard picks. This will be its debut appearance at the Tour de France Femmes and it will want to be visible through stages four and five. Thalita de Jong, 30, is the most experienced rider on the team and is enjoying the best season of her career, with top 10s in Classics and stage races. With the Classics-like terrain of these middle stages, she’ll be active.
Dream Tour
A stage win from the break for de Jong, and a team performance not just making up the numbers
Movistar Team
Annemiek van Vleuten hoovered up races across the calendar and her retirement has naturally stemmed the flow of wins. German national road race champion Liane Lippert is most likely to fill the void, from a stage-winning perspective anyway, and did so last year, in fact. Because of a stress fracture in her hip, however, she didn’t start racing in 2024 until late April. Lippert finished 31st in the GC at the Vuelta España Femenina, with Movistar finishing eighth in the opening team time trial.
Dream Tour
Lippert to recover from her injuries and reach a level where they don’t miss van Vleuten. They can dream…
Roland
Team leader from last year’s race, Claire Steels, is now with Movistar, so it’ll be left to Tamara Dronova, who finished just behind her on GC in 21st, to spearhead Roland’s charge. The Russian has hovered around 30th in the world over the past two seasons and can be relied upon for another solid race. 33-year-old Elena Hartmann, the Swiss national TT champion, is in her first full year with the team and only started in amateur endurance sports at 25. She joined the team last year in time to ride the Tour for the first time.
Dream Tour
A GC top 10 for Dronova and to pull a stage win rabbit out of the hat
St Michel-MavicAuber93
As one of the higher ranked French Continental teams, St Michel-Mavic-Auber93 have been awarded wildcard entry to all three editions of the Tour de France Femmes to date. Marion Bunel, 19, only joined the team as a trainee in August last year but already looks like a good prospect, finishing 8th in the Tour de l’Avenir Femmes in 2023 – the world’s biggest stage race for U23s – and accumulating an excellent haul of ranking points through this spring.
Dream Tour
A strong performance by climber Bunel in one of the final-weekend mountain stages
Tashkent City Women
A surprise name on the start list for Rotterdam, this team from Uzbekistan race on the UCI Asia Tour, where, in its bid to qualify a national team for the Olympics, accumulated enough points to finish as the second-best Continental team in the world rankings and gain automatic entry to all WorldTour races. With a paper-thin squad of 10 riders, by late April it hadn’t chosen to take up those invites and it remained unclear whether it would make its Tour debut.
Dream Tour
Olga Zabelinskaya, 44, and 2nd in the 2016 Olympics TT, to ride to a top 10 in the stage 3 TT
Team dsmfirmenich PostNL
Team dsm-firmenich PostNL will be hoping to battle on multiple fronts, through Charlotte Kool in the sprints and Juliette Labous for GC. Kool was a serial winner in WorldTour sprints in 2023 and, at 25, will be eyeing up turning the seconds and thirds at the Tour into wins for the first time. Top 5 twice at the Tour, Labous is a contender for the yellow jersey in France this summer, and continued improvement on her time trialling (sixth in last year’s TT in Pau) will raise her prospects considerably.
Dream Tour
A stage win at last for Kool and a GC podium spot for Labous
Team SD Worx-Protime
With Annemiek van Vleuten retired, world number one and defending champion Demi Vollering has an easier passage to yellow jersey number two. No young pretenders have so far stepped up to challenge her, so who can? Arguments against a procession to the title were a slow start to the season, her expected departure from the team for 2025 and star team-mate Lotte Kopecky a non-starter because of her Olympics participation. All that said, she’ll start as clear favourite.
Dream Tour
Tour number 2 for Vollering and multiple stage wins for Lorena Wiebes
Team Visma-Lease a Bike
Iliac artery surgery in August for Marianne Vos looked to correct a problem that had left the most successful rider in history short on power and results. It had done the trick by the spring of 2024, where she enjoyed a string of super results, including wins at Amstel Gold Race and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, and two wins at the Vuelta. She’ll be looking to add to her two stage wins at the Tour, even if the GC ambitions of this three-time Giro winner are distant history.
Dream Tour
Vos to add to her two stage wins, after another Olympic triumph in Paris
UAE Team ADQ
Without an obvious contender for the overall victory, UAE Team ADQ will be hoping to break its stage duck at some point over the eight stages. The woman most likely is Italian Silvia Persico, who’s finished 8th two years running in the world rankings and has come close in the past two years at the race with three podiums. Her young compatriot Chiara Consonni had a strong start to the season, including third in Gent-Wevelgem, and will be threat in the sprints.
Dream Tour
A first stage win for the team, with Persico finally clinching the top spot on the podium
Uno-X Mobility
Like so many teams at the lower end of the Women’s WorldTour and beyond, it’s very tough to make a tangible impact at the Tour de France Femmes, the world’s biggest bike race. The best riders are stacked in depth in an elite group of teams, and teams such as Uno-X have their eyes further down the calendar. Anouska Koster was its top-placed GC rider in 2023 (40th) and will hope for the same again, while Maria Confalonieri poses a threat in sprint finishes.
Dream Tour
A top 20 on the GC and a stage win from somewhere, perhaps Anouska Koster