What climbing Alpe d’Huez means for the race and why Vos is still boss
The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift starts on Monday 12 August, and – if it’s anything like the previous two editions – it should be a scintillating, drama-filled week of racing.
But what can we expect from this year’s race?
Keep reading to find out the crucial factors that will influence the third edition.
1. A Grand Départ in the Netherlands is a natural fit for a race dominated by the Dutch
The Netherlands is the most dominant nation in women’s cycling, so it is fitting that it’ll host the first Grand Départ outside France.
The riders will race the first three stages in the Netherlands, beginning with a flat 124km stage from Rotterdam to The Hague before another first: a double day featuring a 67km road stage and a 6.3km individual time trial, all based around Rotterdam.
Of course, with the flat, open roads in this region comes the danger of crosswinds which, alongside the time trial, could make for crucial GC stages.
With both of the previous yellow jerseys having been won by Dutch women (Annemiek van Vleuten and Demi Vollering) and other Dutch riders such as Marianne Vos and Lorena Wiebes having won stages, the Tour de France Femmes currently belongs to the hosts.
2. A second bite of the Ardennes cherry
After the Rotterdam send-off comes another new nation to the Tour de France Femmes: Belgium.
This spring’s Ardennes Classics, in Belgium and the Netherlands, were the most closely contested the women’s peloton has seen in years.
This season saw three different riders winning each of the races in varying styles, from Vos at Amstel Gold to Kasia Niewiadoma at La Flèche Wallonne and Grace Brown in Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Fans of the region don’t have to wait 12 months for the Ardennes swing to roll around again, with stages four and five in the region.
Ardennes touchstones such as climbs of the Cauberg and La Redoute, and settlements including Valkenburg, Liège and Bastogne, are all visited in those middle stages.
While one-day Classics are a different business from Grand Tour stages, the sharp, often vicious climbs of the Ardennes will encourage explosive racing.
After her 2023 Ardennes hat-trick, defending champion Vollering cut a frustrated figure through a winless 2024 Classics campaign, so will be out to make amends in her season’s big target.
3. The Olympics-Tour double has proven a quandary
You’ll have noticed by now that the Tour de France Femmes is later this year, pushed back in the calendar after the Olympics road events in Paris, with the road race happening just a week before the Tour opens in Rotterdam.
Now in its third year, and distanced from the men’s Tour, the race won’t suffer from a viewership point of view as much as it might have done in its first or second years, when it ran immediately afterwards.
From a sporting perspective, however, we’ve already seen it’s somewhat compromised and the biggest name to skip the Tour to focus on the Olympics is Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime).
The reigning road world champion doesn’t want to overload her schedule, as she attempts to win in Paris on both road and track.
For those top riders who choose to race both, the challenge will be to maintain their form over an extended period.
4. Vos is still boss
In 2023, Marianne Vos, the Dutch legend who first became road world champion in 2006, endured a sticky spell.
Battling iliac artery endofibrosis – a thickening of the iliac artery often found in athletes – and numerous bouts of illness, saw her eventually going under the knife and endured one of the worst seasons of her long career.
Like all the best champions, she’s come back strong in 2024 and looks to be back to full power, winning through the spring at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Amstel Gold Race and a Vuelta Femenina stage.
Vos has proven capable of beating riders such as world champion Kopecky and even the fastest sprinters in the peloton.
Winner of two Tour stages and the green jersey on debut in 2022, on current form she’s sure to add to her tally in August.
5. Vollering out to slay the difficult second album
Defending champion Vollering had a slow start to 2024 by her very high standards.
The Dutch rider was a runaway train last season, winning Strade Bianche and a historic Ardennes clean sweep, before a stage-racing campaign in which she was barely outside the top 10 between May and the Tour de France Femmes in July.
Up until May, with a winless Classics campaign, Vollering had been trying to relocate her mojo, but having made it clear she won’t stay with her current team, SD Worx-Protime, perhaps she’d been distracted.
A win at La Vuelta Femenina, the first major tour of the season, in May, showed her GC form is still very much there and, with team-mate Kopecky’s absence from the Tour in August, she’ll retain full leadership at the race, despite the tricky contractual circumstances.
She’ll unquestionably start as favourite, but a debut win is always difficult to follow up.
6. The 2023 chasm between SD Worx and the rest has been closed
Since the introduction of a minimum salary and other requirements, such as maternity pay, within the Women’s WorldTour in 2020, its strength has risen.
This has enabled more riders to race professionally, which makes for deeper, stronger teams, and more focused teamwork, because stacked teams are capable of competing deeper into races to assist their leaders.
In 2023, many of the top teams suffered multiple injuries and absences of their most dependable riders: Lidl-Trek lost Elisa Longo Borghini to illness, while time trial specialist Ellen van Dijk took maternity leave.
This led to the dominance of the SD Worx team.
This season, Lidl-Trek have returned to their best, but they are not the only team who have strength in numbers.
FDJ-Suez have plenty of options as well as Movistar, Fenix-Deceuninck, Canyon//SRAM and EF Education-Cannondale.
Vollering remains the dominant GC rider in the peloton, but with so many teams able to compete on equal terms, the race is much more open.
7. The showdown on Alpe d’Huez is a huge moment for the race
In a new race such as the Tour de France Femmes, every day brings a new ‘first’. So it was only a matter of time before the race paid a visit to that most famous of Tour de France haunts, Alpe d’Huez.
The race’s predecessor, La Course, climbed Alpine giants such as the Col d’Izoard and Col de la Colombière, but the legend of Alpe d’Huez makes it a climb like no other and it will be a fitting finale to the third edition, cementing the Tour’s status as the premier stage race in the world.
Even with everything that’s come before – a time trial, hilly Classics-esque stages and a stage 7 summit finish at Le Grand-Bornand – Alpe d’Huez, with its 21, illustrious switchbacks, will likely be the decider, and a benchmark for the future of the race.
8. Can Kasia Niewiadoma’s spring win be a springboard for more?
Someone who is not lacking form this season is Canyon//SRAM’s Kasia Niewiadoma.
The 29-year-old Polish rider had an impressive 2023 Tour, including a heroic effort on the Col du Tourmalet on stage 7, for which she was rewarded with a third place overall and the polka dot jersey.
A rider who is always willing to roll the dice, Niewiadoma had come painfully close to breaking an agonising five-year win drought numerous times last season.
Although she took the gravel world title in October, road success continued to be elusive.
In 2024, however, she’s stepped up another level.
Still racing aggressively and with no shortage of heart, she managed to score some of her best results in years, taking second place at the Tour of Flanders before finally winning at La Flèche Wallonne ahead of Vollering and Longo Borghini.
If Niewiadoma continues her trajectory, she could be on track to win big at the Tour and be the main challenger to Vollering for the yellow jersey.