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Tuesday, August 2, 2022
Dutch cyclist Annemiek Van Vleuten of Movistar Team won the inaugural Tour de France Femmes on Sunday following the conclusion of the final stage that finished at the top of La Planche des Belles Filles. Van Vleuten had struggled earlier in the eight-day race with sickness, losing time to competitors such as second-place finisher Demi Vollering of SD Worx and third-place finisher Katarzyna Niewiadoma of Canyon-SRAM. Van Vleuten was able to limit her time losses through the first few stages, and recovered in time to attack her competitors in the final two mountain stages, where Van Vleuten had been considered a favorite. “I hope it’s a big start and we can build this into an even bigger event,” said Van Vlueten after winning the general Classification. “It’s a milestone to win the first one of, hopefully, many more.”
Second-place finisher Demi Vollering claimed the Queen of the Mountains jersey, and veteran rider Marianne Vos of Team Jumbo Visma claimed the green jersey of the sprint points classification. Vos had been instrumental in lobbying Amaury Sport Organisation, the organizer of the Tour de France, to put on a women’s race similar to the famed men’s race. Fittingly, she won two stages and wore the yellow jersey of the overall leader until Van Vleuten took the lead on the penultimate day. The white jersey of the best young rider competition was claimed by Shirin van Anrooij of Trek-Segafredo, meaning that all four classifications were claimed by Dutch riders. Dutch rider Lorena Wiebes of Team DSM won two individual stages in sprint finishes, before suffering a crash on a descent and later abandoning the race during the seventh stage. Danish rider Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig of FDJ-Suez-Futuroscope and Swiss rider Marlen Reusser of SD Worx also won individual stages.
The Tour de France Femmes won praise for a well-designed course and substantial media coverage that brought large crowds to the race course, even on remote mountaintop finishes. Previous versions of a women’s Tour de France race were conducted in 1955 and again from 1984-1986, but they lacked media coverage and resources and were not continued. This first edition of the Tour de France Femmes contained eight days of racing, beginning in Paris on the same day that the men’s race ended. The Tour de France Femmes joins the Giro d’Italia Donne as a Grand Tour in the UCI Women’s WorldTour calendar, and will be joined by La Vuelta Feminina in Spain in 2023. Race organizers and riders are already discussing ways to expand on the success of the Tour de France Femmes, including increasing the number of race days to more closely match the men’s race, visiting the Pyrenees or the Alps, and including an individual time trial stage.