The Tour de France Femmes arrives for a 3rd version in 2024 and gives alternatives on eight phases in seven days for any of the 154 riders within the 22-team peloton to earn private glory, obtain staff objectives and etch their achievements within the historical past books but once more. Sprinters start the proceedings for the primary yellow jersey with a flat trio of openers in The Netherlands. Then the hills hit on stage 4 in Belgium and the climbers march into France for the ultimate showdown on Alpe d’Huez.
Along with the brand new territory for the Tour are new riders, greater than 50 of them making first-time appearances on the Grand Tour. Among them are a number of riders recent from the Paris Olympic Games, together with multi-discipline medallist Chloé Dygert (Canyon-SRAM), Blanka Vas (SD Worx-Protime), who was fourth within the girls’s highway race, and Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck), who was fourth within the girls’s cross-country MTB occasion.
Age makes no distinction in the case of making first impressions. One of probably the most veteran riders on the beginning record this 12 months is 31-year-old Ruth Edwards (Human Powered Health), who retired in 2021 and now in her return to racing will get an opportunity to compete within the Tour.
There are 20 riders beneath the age of 23, and two of them are cyclocross stars – Pieterse and Fem van Empel (Visma-Lease a Bike) – the present World Champion within the self-discipline. Neither have lots of stage racing expertise, so to step into the highlight on the world’s largest theatre for highway ought to add a major storyline.
Here is a listing of a few of the standout debutants at this 12 months’s Tour de France Femmes, just some riders who might simply make an affect on particular person phases and with staff ways for classification battles.
Chloé Dygert and Neve Bradbury (Canyon-SRAM)
Canyon-SRAM’s Kasia Niewiadoma delivered a 3rd place within the GC and the mountain classification title final 12 months, because the German Women’s WorldTour squad chased a dominant Team SD Worx your entire race. This 12 months Niewiadoma can have the dynamic duo of Neve Bradbury and Olympic medallist Chloé Dygert on debut to amp up the cost for GC and stage wins.
Bradbury, third on GC on the Giro d’Italia this 12 months, took victory up the demanding Blockhaus mountain stage to announce herself as a top-tier climber and contendor. Looming for the finale of this 12 months’s Tour is the long-lasting Alpe d’Huez climb, which has been current in 32 Tours de France. This is the primary time in years that the professional girls’s peloton has completed atop the 21 switchbacks.
The newest race content material, interviews, options, opinions and professional shopping for guides, direct to your inbox!
“I’m wanting ahead to stage eight, which finally ends up Alpe D’Huez. It’s much like the stage I received on the Giro,” Bradbury famous.
Dygert is recent off two podium appearances for Team USA on the Paris Olympic Games, the place she earned a bronze within the particular person time trial on the highway and a gold within the Team Pursuit on the monitor. And she could have contested for a medal within the highway race had it not been for a crash that held her again in fifteenth. She had a strong 12 months in Grand Tours final 12 months with three podiums at La Vuelta Femenina and two podiums on the Giro d’Italia Donne, but it surely’s Tour de France Femmes success that she now appears to be like to.
Gaia Realini (Lidl-Trek)
In her debut with Lidl-Trek final 12 months at age 22, the younger Italian made the UAE Tour and Giro d’Italia Donne her assertion stage races, taking second within the former behind teammate Elisa Longo Borghini and ending third on GC and the mountains classification within the latter.
Fourth on the Jebel Hafeet end at UAE Tour Women and netting fourth total to start out 2024, Realini continued to shine with podiums on mountain phases at Setmana Valenciana, Vuelta Extremadura Féminas after which the Tour de Suisse Women. On the opening day of the Swiss stage race, she climbed to second behind Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime) and carried that momentum to a GC prime 10 and second place within the mountains classification.
At one other Giro, she was seventh total as Longo Borghini took the win, with the younger climber ending within the prime 10 on the Blockhaus climb on stage 7. She’ll look to soar once more on the climbs at this 12 months’s Tour de France Femmes, particularly on the again half of the weeklong race with an uphill end to Amnéville on stage 5, a quintet of categorised climbs on stage 6 and the back-to-back mountaintop finishes at Le Grand-Bornand and Alpe d’Huez.
Blank Vas and Niamh Fisher-Black (SD Worx-Protime)
Two rising stars within the Women’s WorldTour get alternatives to experience the Tour de France Femmes for the primary time, Niamh Fisher-Black and Blanka Vas, named to the top-ranked SD Worx-Protime squad to assist chief Demi Vollering defend her title. Both can even assist the Dutch squad make an announcement on the opening three phases, scheduled throughout two days on residence soil together with the Grand Départ in Rotterdam.
Fisher-Black, who turns 24 on August 12, will showcase her climbing talents on the Tour, because the abundance of hilly terrain is the place she thrives. At this 12 months’s Giro d’Italia Women, she received the uphill battle to Toano on stage 3, which vaulted her into the GC prime 5. With a seventh place on Blockhaus, she would end for a fourth 12 months within the prime 10 of the GC.
Her first alternative to do one thing particular on the Tour can be stage 4 with a end that replicates the finale from this 12 months’s Liège-Bastogne-Liege, the place Fisher-Black was tenth.
“Niamh Fisher-Black is there to help Demi Vollering. The climbing work is her territory and it will likely be her job to help Demi Vollering as a lot as potential within the final two to a few difficult phases. She has made strides and tanked confidence with a WorldTour-level win on the Giro d’Italia,” stated Sports Manager Danny Stam when the roster was introduced in August.
Both riders made debuts on the Olympic Games, with Vas ending fourth for Hungary within the dash for medals within the highway race. She has energy throughout diverse terrain, which she demonstrated with a stage win on an uphill end finally 12 months’s Giro d’Italia Donne and added a runner-up consequence on a rolling stage at this 12 months’s Vuelta España.
“Blanka Vas is a brilliant versatile rider, best for the varied course of this Tour de France Femmes. She can go lengthy uphill, she will additionally stand her floor within the sprints. And if she slips right into a breakaway, she could be harmful,” Stam famous.
Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck)
The multi-discipline Dutch star put a lot of her focus for 2024 on the flat bars after incomes a bronze medal within the elite girls’s class on the Cyclocross World Championships. The 22-year-old competed in eight one-day highway races within the spring, then moved to the UCI World Cup mountain bike collection, passing the under-23 division to the elites to qualify for her first Olympic Games. She scored three World Cup podiums and went on to complete one spot off the rostrum in Paris within the cross-country MTB occasion.
Pieterse appears to be like to make her assertion in her first Tour, which can also be the primary stage race in her highway profession. In her eight highway begins for Fenix-Deceuninck this spring, she got here away with seven prime 10s, together with podiums at Trofeo Alfredo Binda and Ronde van Drenthe. Last 12 months her compatriot and teammate Yara Kastelijn received the Tour de France Femmes stage 4 from a solo breakaway into Rodez for her first professional highway win, so Pieterse will look to observe go well with for an aggressive Feni-Deceuninck outfit.
Fem van Empel (Visma-Lease a Bike)
The Visma-Lease a Bike squad can be led by Marianne Vos and Riejanne Markus, with the previous being recent off a silver medal within the highway race on the Paris Olympic Games. Part of a powerful squad supporting Vos’s efforts to put on the yellow jersey in her residence Netherlands, as she did for six days in 2022, can be Fem van Empel. The 21-year-old is the reigning elite girls’s cyclocross World Champion and can be one to observe within the mid-week hilly phases.
In her first highway season with Visma final 12 months, Van Empel completed eleventh on the Giro d’Italia Donne. At this 12 months’s Giro, she crashed on stage 5 and couldn’t proceed. With time away from racing and a recent reboot, she is likely one of the younger wildcards to observe.
She’s received extra expertise than CX rival and pal Pieterse, having additionally starred within the inaugural girls’s Tour de l’Avenir final summer season, the place she took a stage win, the inexperienced jersey and helped Shirin van Anrooij to total victory for the Netherlands.
Ruth Edwards (Human Powered Health)
US rider Ruth Edwards can be a rider to observe as she’s going to look to duplicate the climbing success she achieved at this 12 months’s Giro d’Italia Women. Edwards climbed to a pair of stage runner-up spots within the mountains, stage 6 to Chieti on the longest day of the Giro, 159km, and two days in a while the hilly experience to L’Aquila. The staff calls her skill to get into breakaways “a testomony to her race IQ”.
Just earlier than taking up her fifth Giro, Edwards received the general on the Lotto Thüringen Ladies Tour. She appears to regulate to only about any terrain and might keep her ambition and health for the lengthy haul. Endurance is one in every of her strengths, which she demonstrated with a variety of gravel race victories when she was away from highway racing for 2 years. Retirement didn’t imply leisure for Edwards, simply recharge.
Get limitless entry to all of our protection of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes – together with breaking information and evaluation reported by our journalists on the bottom from each stage because it occurs and extra. Find out extra.