Saint-Martin-de-Ré (France) (AFP)
Disappeared for more than a decade, the female equivalent of the Tour de France must be resuscitated in 2022. A godsend for the only French team labeled World Tour, the FDJ-Nouvelle Aquitaine, based in Poitiers, where the Great Loop arrives on Wednesday.
"The Tour de France is the biggest race in the world. In terms of visibility, it would be enormous", judges the CEO of the Française des Jeux, Stéphane Pallez, main partner of the first French team.
ASO is already organizing the "Course by le Tour", contested over one day, on a course covering part of a stage of the Big Loop.
But a stage race would give much greater exposure to women's cycling, the most notable of which, the women's Giro (which starts on Friday), is hardly known.
"As an athlete, of course, I want a Tour de France", claims the Briton Lizzie Deignan, winner this year of the "Course" in Nice.
"I want to be pushed to my limits and show what women's sport is. And that can be more than a step of course, supports the runner of the Trek. I think, of course, that there is room to grow and develop and I think we are going in that direction ".
This equivalent of the Tour de France should see the light of day within two years: "It would be logical to consider it for 2022", announced in the spring the director of the Tour Christian Prudhomme.
A deadline since confirmed by the president of the International Cycling Union (UCI) David Lappartient at the start of the Great Loop in Nice: "It was planned for 2021 but the delay of the Olympic Games means that it will be in 2022."
- Salary increase -
This stage race, the resurrection of the women's Tour de France which existed in the 1980s, should be contested over a week in the wake of the Men's Great Loop.
"Our commitment has always been aimed at pushing a women's Tour and other major races in France," Stéphane Pallez displays with satisfaction.
Since this year, on October 25, runners will be entitled to their version of the queen of the classics, Paris-Roubaix.
The team supported by its company since 2017, FDJ-Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope - to be complete -, hopes to shine there.
It is the only French formation among the eight present at WorldTeams level.
A category created in 2020 by the UCI to structure women's cycling.
La Française des Jeux has just renewed its partnership: "This enabled the team to obtain its WorldTeams license from the UCI, which requested a certain number of guarantees".
Indeed, the international federation has set a minimum wage from 2020, 15,000 euros per year, for runners playing in teams in this new category.
This amount will increase each year until 2023 to reach that in force in the professional men's continental teams (the 2nd level for men), a little more than 30,000 euros.
This wage growth should be accompanied by an increase in income.
"With ASO's expertise, their influence and the possibility of television broadcasting which is theirs, it would be fabulous for them to organize an event of this nature", estimates David Lappartient.
This year, women's cycling has been hit hard by the pandemic, as illustrated by the rescue of the Bigla-Katusha team by the ready-to-wear brand Paule Ka.
And according to the winner of the Tour de France 2012, Bradley Wiggins, the return of a female Big Loop must be done as quickly as possible: "The impact of Covid-19 on the female peloton will be much greater than on that of the men . We probably need something like a Tour de France now, because the sponsors will come. "
© 2020 AFP