2025 Tour De France Femmes: Everything To Know Before The Grand Départ

Forbes

2 days ago

ALBI, FRANCE - JULY 28: (L-R) Sandra Alonso of Spain and Team CERATIZIT-WNT Pro Cycling, Wilma ... More Olausson of Sweden and Team Uno-X Pro Cycling Team, Veronica Ewers of The United States and Team EF Education-TIBCO-SVB, Ella Wyllie of New Zealand and Team Lifeplus Wahoo, Soraya Paladin of Italy and Team Canyon//SRAM Racing, Eleonora Camilla Gasparrini of Italy and UAE Team ADQ, Simone Boilard of Canada and Team St Michel - Mavic - Auber93, Demi Vollering of The Netherlands and Team SD Worx - Protime - Pink UCI Women's WorldTour Leader Jersey and a general view of the peloton competing through flowery landscape during the 2nd Tour de France Femmes 2023, Stage 6 a 122.1km stage from Albi to Blagnac / #UCIWWT / on July 28, 2023 in Albi, France. (Photo by Tim)
The fourth edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift is fast approaching—the action gets underway on Saturday, July 26 in Brittany. This year, organizers have extended the race from eight days to nine, which will see the peloton cover 1,165km before a winner is crowned in the Alps.
Last year's race treated fans to one of the most dramatic final stages in cycling history. Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) fought on the difficult and mountainous final stage to win the yellow jersey, four seconds ahead of 2023 champion Demi Vollering, who has since moved from SD-Worx Protime to FDJ-Suez. Those four seconds mark the smallest margin of victory in men's and women's Tour de France history.
2025 Tour de France Femmes Fast Facts
The 2025 Tour de France Femmes Route
THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS - AUGUST 12: A general view of Charlotte Kool of The Netherlands and Team ... More dsm-firmenich PostNL, Marianne Vos of The Netherlands and Team Visma | Lease a Bike and Elisa Balsamo of Italy and Team Lidl - Trek sprint at finish line to win the stage during the 3rd Tour de France Femmes 2024, Stage 1 a 123km stage from Rotterdam to The Hague / #UCIWWT / on August 12, 2024 in The Hague, Netherlands. (Photo by)
Like the 2025 men's Tour de France, the women's race takes place entirely in France this year. The peloton starts in Brittany before making its way east across the country, through the Massif Central and ultimately to the Alps for the final two days of racing.
Notably, there is no time trial in this year's race. Further, the sprinters have few opportunities this year; though the official Tour de France Femmes website classifies stage two as flat, the route is packed with small hills that could prove too difficult for the pure sprinters.
The riders will take on the first major mountains of the Tour on stage six. The penultimate stage is the queen stage—the most difficult in the race—and features a summit finish on the Col de la Madeleine. There are more mountains to climbs on the final stage, which features three difficult ascents and a climb to the finish in Châtel.
Favorites For The Yellow Jersey
TOPSHOT - Canyon//SRAM Racing team's Polish rider Katarzyna Niewiadoma celebrates after crossing the ... More finish line and winning the third edition of the Women's Tour de France cycling race, after the 8th and last stage of the Tour de France, a 149.9 km between Le Grand Bornand and the Alpe d'Huez, in south-eastern France, on August 18, 2024. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP) (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA/AFP via Getty Images)
Niewiadoma and Vollering return to France each hoping to become the first woman to win the Tour de France Femmes twice since it was relaunched in 2022. Further, both women have been on the Tour's final podium each year since that revival. This season, Vollering has thrived on her new team, winning La Vuelta Femenina as well as several other stage races. She will also have a strong team around her including 2024 fourth-place finisher Évita Muzic and Juliette Labous, both of whom could finish inside the top 10. Meanwhile, Niewiadoma has had a quieter season, but placed third at the Tour de Suisse, her last race before the Tour.
Neither Vollering nor Niewiadoma raced in July's Giro d'Italia Women, where Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) won her second straight title. Longo Borghini missed last year's Tour due to a crash before the race, but will surely be a factor this year, even with the quick turnaround from the Giro. Marlen Reusser (Movistar) and Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal) rounded out the podium at the Giro and aim to back up those performances in France.
2024 Olympic mountain biking champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike) has refocused on road racing this season. After several strong performances this spring, including a win at Paris-Roubaix, Ferrand-Prévot spent the summer focused on her preparations for the Tour.
SD Worx-Protime, Vollering's former team, remains one of the deepest teams in the women's peloton. World champion Lotte Kopecky intended to focus on the general classification for the team this year, but the team's race preview announced it has 'abandoned its original plan to go for the general classification with Kopecky as its sole leader' after Kopecky withdrew from the Giro with back pain. Instead, the team arrives at the Tour in stage-hunting mode, though sports director Danny Stam left the door open for a general classification push depending on how Kopecky feels.
Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceunick) had a career-best performance in the final stage of last year's Tour, which resulted in her claiming the final step on the podium. She and last year's white jersey winner Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceunick) represent their team's general classification hopes, as Cédrine Kerabol does for EF Education-Oatly.
How Does The Tour de France Femmes Work?
ALPE D'HUEZ, FRANCE - AUGUST 18: (L-R) Puck Pieterse of The Netherlands and Team Fenix-Deceuninck - ... More White Best Young Rider Jersey, Justine Ghekiere of Belgium - Polka dot Mountain Jersey, Katarzyna Niewiadoma of Poland and Team Canyon//SRAM Racing - Yellow Leader Jersey and Marianne Vos of The Netherlands and Team Visma | Lease a Bike - Green Points Jersey celebrate at final podium during the 3rd Tour de France Femmes 2024, Stage 8 a 149.9km stage from Le Grand-Bornand to Alpe d'Huez 1828m / #UCIWWT / on August 18, 2024 in Alpe d'Huez, France. (Photo by)
There are 22 teams starting the 2025 Tour de France Femmes. All 15 of the UCI Women's World Tour teams were invited. Seven UCI Women's ProTeams make up the rest of the peloton, with the two best in the 2024 rankings earning an automatic invite and the rest selected by the Tour's organizers, Amaury Sport Organization (ASO). Each of these teams sends seven riders to the race.
The riders vie for four individual classifications during the race, each marked by a specialty jersey. The most important of these—and the most coveted in the sport—is the yellow jersey. This belongs to the rider with the fastest cumulative time. The race leader on each stage wears yellow before the Tour's overall winner is crowned at the end of the race.
The other time-based classification is that of the best young rider. The rider under the age of 23 with the fastest cumulative time wears the white jersey.
The final two individual classification are points-based. First, the green jersey is worn by the leader of the points classification. Riders rack up points during each stage at the intermediate sprint and the finish line in this competition. This is typically understood as the 'sprinters classification' and the flatter the stage, the more points available on the finish line. Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) won this classification in 2022 and 2024 and aims for a third crown this year.
The polka dot jersey is for the leader in the mountains classification, who is often called the 'Queen of the Mountains.' Riders earn points for cresting climbs in a top position and the higher the climb, the more points available at the top. AG-Insurance Soudal's Justine Ghekiere returns to defend her title from last year, which she won ahead of Vollering.
The only individual classification with an eligibility requirement is the white jersey, and a rider can lead more than one classification at a time.
There is also a teams classification, where the ranking is determined based on the general classification times of each team's first three riders on each stage. The leading team does not get their own yellow jersey, but they do wear yellow race numbers.
The final major award on the road is the combativity prize. The most aggressive rider of each stage earns the day's combativity prize. The rider judged the most aggressive across the entire race wins the Super Combativity award at the final podium ceremony.