Women's Tour de France: eight stages, 1,000 kilometers, start in front of the Eiffel Tower

Europe 1 with AFP 12:53 p.m., October 14, 2021

The 2022 Tour de France Women will kick off in Paris on July 24 in front of the Eiffel Tower, arriving seven days later at the top of the Planche des Belles Filles in the Vosges mountains.

Marion Rousse, recently appointed director of the event organized by ASO, unveiled on Thursday the course of eight stages, for a distance exceeding 1,000 kilometers.

A women's Tour de France has existed in the past in different forms.

Organized in parallel with the Men's Tour from 1984 to 1989, it then took place with other organizers under other names before disappearing at the end of the 2000s for lack of funding.

Four plain stages, two others with a hilly profile and two days in the mountains

The Tour de France Women will start on the day of the arrival of the Tour 2022 men, Sunday July 24.

The new event will be endowed with 250,000 euros in prizes, including 50,000 for the winner, i.e. an amount greater than the one-week races for men (the total amount of the Paris-Nice prizes reaches for example 144,300 euros, including 16,000 for the winner. ).

The course of the race officially named "Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift" will take the direction of eastern France over four plain stages, two others with a hilly profile and two days in the mountains.

Symbolically, the competitors will climb the Ballon d'Alsace, the first pass to be climbed by the Tour de France in 1905, and will compete for the last yellow jersey at the top of the Super Planche des Belles Filles which will also be a finish of the Men's Grande Boucle l 'next year.

"An eight-day race is the right format," said Marion Rousse.

"We do not put barriers to go beyond afterwards. Our ambition is to organize a lasting race and, for that, the economic aspect is essential".

175 kilometers between Bar-le-Duc and Saint-Dié-des-Vosges

If the climax of the event is set at the Grand Ballon (1336 m above sea level), in the 7th and penultimate stage leading to the Alsatian station of Markstein, the longest stage will reach 175 kilometers between Bar-le- Duc and Saint-Dié-des-Vosges (5th stage).

Curiosity of this first edition, the 4th stage will take the "white paths", the French version of the Tuscan Strade Bianche, that is to say chalky paths through the vineyards of the Champagne hills for nearly 13 kilometers as you approach Bar-sur-Aube.

Twenty-two teams of six riders will be entered in the Tour de France Women and the race will benefit from a live broadcast of 2.5 hours per day on France Télévisions.

"The races already exist in women's cycling," noted Tour director Christian Prudhomme.

"What is lacking is dissemination, media coverage, essential to ensure economic balance. We hope to achieve balance in the first year".