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After simply two editions, the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift has already established itself because the premier occasion on the Girls’s WorldTour calendar.
The status of the Tour title, coupled with the skilled organisation of ASO, has succeeded in elevating the profile of ladies’s racing, giving the riders a chance to race for an emblem that transcends the game: the yellow jersey.
Earlier than the route for the third version was formally introduced in Paris on Wednesday, we knew that the race would characteristic a Grand Départ outdoors of France for the primary time, in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Within the days earlier than the presentation, rumours additionally started to flow into of an Alpe d’Huez end for the ultimate stage of the 2024 race. Following on from the Col du Tourmalet in 2023, an Alpe d’Huez grand finale could be one other key draw, constructing on the memorable parcours of the 2 earlier iterations.
The goal has been to steadily improve the size and problem of the race because the depth of the ladies’s peloton will increase with annually. From a weekend finale within the Vosges mountains in 2022, to the Col du Tourmalet in 2023, it was confirmed that the race will now head to the Alps for the primary time with the ladies lastly tackling the 21 hairpins of l’Alpe d’Huez.
However what else does the route have in retailer, and what’s going to it imply for the result?
A race of two halves
Though the race will end atop one of the crucial iconic French biking arenas, it begins a lot additional away, in Rotterdam. After establishing a completely separate race from the lads’s occasion in 2023, the Tour de France Femmes continues to go its personal method, with two opening phases in Rotterdam and stage 4 additionally beginning within the Netherlands earlier than crossing the border into Belgium.
It’s only on stage 5 that the peloton will lastly enter the nation after which the race is known as, heading from Bastogne within the Wallonie area of Belgium to Amnéville within the northeast of France.
Earlier than that, nonetheless, they may sort out a flat 124km opening stage from Rotterdam to The Hague. The pan-flat parcours and a large, uncomplicated ultimate 5km means the stage has ‘bunch dash’ written throughout it. It must be a reasonably simple day, offering the wind doesn’t wreak havoc because the riders traverse the huge open roads surrounded by tulip fields.
In an uncommon twist, the second and third phases will happen throughout a single day. Dordrecht will host the beginning of a surprisingly brief 67km highway stage earlier than the peloton tackles a 6.7km particular person time trial that very same afternoon.
With no climbs to deal with over such a brief distance, the highway stage might be quick and livid, almost certainly ending in one other bunch kick. Though the time trial within the afternoon makes the day an extended one, the full distance throughout each phases nonetheless solely reaches 73.7km, far lower than the peloton is used to tackling.
The afternoon’s time trial covers the same path to the prologue of the 2010 Tour de France and, at simply 6.7km, is prone to favour punchier riders over GC hopefuls, the latter of whom might be unlikely to have the ability to make an excessive amount of of a distinction.
Stage 4 presents a tougher parcours because the riders head into the Ardennes, with France nonetheless very far-off. Beginning in Valkenburg and ending in Liège, the riders might be acquainted with the climbs as many may have raced them just some months prior. Defending Tour de France champion and triple 2023 Ardennes winner Demi Vollering (SD Worx) will doubtless be licking her lips at this stage and undoubtedly hoping to make use of it as an early launchpad.
Then, lastly, to France – midway via stage 5.
Whereas it’s common for the lads’s race to have overseas Départs, the ladies’s race doesn’t fairly really feel lengthy sufficient at eight phases to justify spending nearly half of these outdoors of France.
After all, Classics followers and specialists might be happy with the race’s journey to the Netherlands and Belgium for a Classics re-run, however will it take away among the Tour feeling?
Difficult climbs
If the opening phases appear incongruous, and a little bit distant from the quintessential Tour de France feeling, then the remaining three definitely make up for it.
The 160km stage 6 from Remiremont to Morteau transitions the race in the direction of the Alps with some medium climbs in the direction of the tip. Stage 7 is hillier nonetheless, ending atop Le Grand-Bornand, which in 2018 at La Course noticed a fierce battle between two now-retired greats of the ladies’s peloton, Annemiek van Vleuten and Anna van der Breggen.
This time, Van der Breggen might be within the driver’s seat as director at Group SD Worx, whereas Van Vleuten could be watching on and feeling like she missed out, significantly on the ultimate stage up Alpe d’Huez.
The now-40-year-old expressed a need to race up the well-known switchbacks on the end of the inaugural Tour de France Femmes, telling the media: “Truly, I’d hope – as a result of subsequent 12 months would be the final 12 months – that we are able to possibly have Alpe d’Huez.”
Sadly for the previous Tour winner, the addition got here a 12 months too late, however whereas fears of Van Vleuten racing away with the win by an enormous margin made folks cautious of including such a climb, it’s a completely different Dutchwoman who’s in peril of doing so this time round. After her show on the Col du Tourmalet at this 12 months’s race, Demi Vollering made clear her declare because the strongest climber within the peloton.
Nonetheless, the 2 climbs provide a barely completely different problem, with Alpe d’Huez coming in shorter however steeper than the Tourmalet, that means that others could also be in rivalry for longer.
Whether or not Vollering wins by a mile or not, the truth that the race goes to a climb that’s steeped in Tour historical past is a win for the entire peloton. If the unforgettable pictures from the Planche des Belles Filles and Col du Tourmalet are something to go by, then the ambiance on Alpe d’Huez might be electrical.
Can anybody beat SD Worx on this course?
The overarching theme of the 2023 season was the dominating energy of SD Worx, elevating the query of how different groups might beat their unimaginable collective energy.
The Tour de France was no exception, with Demi Vollering and Lotte Kopecky going 1-2 on the general podium and taking residence each the yellow and inexperienced jerseys whereas the staff additionally gained 4 of the eight phases.
This terrain appears prone to swimsuit the staff to a tee, with flat opening phases for his or her high sprinter, Lorena Wiebes, to mop up, an influence ITT constructed for Lotte Kopecky if she finally ends up racing regardless of her Olympic observe ambitions, and every part from the Ardennes-style climbs to Alpe d’Huez for GC chief Demi Vollering.
After all, whenever you’re probably the most dominant staff on the circuit, any parcours fits, and SD Worx could be arduous to beat in any race.
The 2024 Tour de France Femmes route, nonetheless, performs into the staff’s strengths, that means that it’s going to take a really sturdy contender to face in the best way of Demi Vollering and a back-to-back GC victory.
Submit-Paris
One ultimate consideration round how this race could be tackled is that it takes place simply over every week after the ladies’s highway race on the Paris 2024 Olympic Video games. The impact of this might go one in all two methods for the riders; both they may nonetheless be in high type after one in all their greatest targets of the 12 months, that means we might be one of the crucial fiercely contested Excursions up to now, or they are going to be mentally and bodily spent post-Video games. We might see some sitting the Tour out after the Olympics, though the favourites, together with Vollering, are unlikely to need to miss out.
Regardless of an uncommon begin to the race and a shift as a substitute on the calendar the 2024 Tour de France Femmes route reveals a continued dedication from ASO to rising the occasion. Marion Rousse and her colleagues are clearly not afraid to current the ladies with a problem, which though it usually implies that we see much less variation within the consequence, is crucial for the expansion of the game as an entire.
With a various route each geographically and when it comes to terrain, and a crescendo atop Alpe d’Huez, the 2024 race will undoubtedly ship the explosive and thrilling racing we’ve got turn into used to over the previous two editions of the Tour de France Femmes.
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