Tour de France Tour de France Femmes 2022 (July 24th-31st)

[RobertCrawley]

Emotional interview for the interviewer! Annemiek hopes for a time trial in future years.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1553842938786025477

View: https://twitter.com/SBSSportau/status/1553842938786025477

 

[Red Rick]

The route and race this year was ok. It wasn't as good as some commentators and journalists have expressed, but I guess the overselling part is always a part of a true Tour de France experience. But the attention the riders got, the growing crowds and television viewers and the whole atmosphere surrounding the race were great. We'll see what happens next year, when it's no longer a sort of first. They were also quite lucky with the weather this year.

The race was backloaded, but it kind of needed to be. Last year's Giro Donne proved that if one rider/team is much better than the others, then the racing won't be that interesting if it's already decided after the first few stages. Although with Van Vleuten's illnes, it could have been different in this case, but you can't really rely on something like that happening again.

I wasn't a fan of the first stage. I would rather have had a copy of the men's stage, although it obviously made it nicer for the crowds. that they got to see them on 12 laps instead of 8 or less. Still there's just always a higher risk of crashes on Champs-Élysées, that I don't see it as an ideal starting point.

Stage 3 was the best of the whole race. We didn't know the winner before the last few hundred meters, even though most of us probably thought we did. Cille's win was both great for her, the fans and for the race, and we also got to see a lot of attacks before the final plus some questionable tactics that we could discuss afterwards.

The gravel stage would have been better, if they had taken out one or both of the last two sections. That would possibly also have meant, that the pace hadn't gone out when the sections ended, because the riders were just happy to have made through them in Marianne Vos' words.

The long stage 5 was a gimmick, and it doesn't really need to be repeated. ASO should rather add 10 km to LBL.

Stage 6 turned out to be too easy, though it's also likely that it would have been ridden differently, had it not been for the very hard day that followed. But had it not been for the crash, Lorena Wiebes would possibly have won 3 stages, and that is a bit too much for my liking, when we've seen that plenty of times before. And she would possibly have won stage 2 as well, had it not been for that sneaky Trek attack.

Stage 6 should also have ended in a win from the breakaway, but hopefully we'll generally get to see some better cooperation in larger breaks during women's races in the future.

Stage 7 went as predicted. Van Vleuten attacked early and gave it her all, and you gotta applaud that. The same goes for Vollering, who died trying., and to some extent Longo Borghini, too. Hopefully Frenh television and ASO can strike a del to show mroe than two/two and half hourse next year, if they put in a similar stage.

Stage 8 was alright. We saw more GC action than during the men's stage (including some coming of age performances + Van Vleuten showing Vingegaard and García how to properly deal with multiple bike changes).


For next year, I wouldn't mind an ITT, just like Van Vleuten, Van Dijk and Reusser. Trine Schmidt has been dreaming of a TTT all week on Danish ES, but I rather not see that.

I would also like to see a mix between stage 2 of this year's Vuelta Challenge and the final stage of the 2020 Giro Rosa, where you have very little flat and multiple climbs of varying lengths, but without very steep gradients. And I would like that stage to have a descent finish. Some of the other stages could have descents in the finals as well.

They tried gravel this year, so perhaps some cobbles could be seen next. It shouldn't be too difficult of course, but just hard enough to drop Wiebes or at least make her work for it.

Van Vleuten is dreaming of Alpe d'Huez, and that would at least be an actually iconic MTF, where female riders have also won in the past. That should probably be a unipuerto stage.

Some riders want more stages, so there'll be some easier days. I understand the argument, but it's also a strength of women's cycling that there's usually more full-on racing, so having more boring stages isn't on my wish-list (AVV doesn't want more stages yet either).

And I still don't want the race to start or finish outside of France. I can perhaps accept Monaco.

Feel it's big to at least aspire to expand to at least 2 weeks in the not too long term for me at least. Otherwise it feels like the biggest race in name only for women. I think that's more important than harder mountain stages or longer stages.

The good thing about womens racing is mountain stages don't need to be as crazy to get great racing. Basically at this stage any cat 1 crushes the field. That doesn't mean I don't wanna see HC climbs, but they should be used more sparingly definitely.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Emotional interview for the interviewer! Annemiek hopes for a time trial in future years.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1553842938786025477

View: https://twitter.com/SBSSportau/status/1553842938786025477

Yes, that thank you to Gracie Elvin was lovely.

It was fantastic that the icons of the sport won stages and the GC. However, we need more diversity in stage winners - Ideally, I'd have a 13 stage race which has two rest days - So you start at the Champs and end two Sundays later - This will allow you to create more variety in the parcours - I'd aim for 3 sprint stages, 3 high mountain stages, 2 punchy stages and five transitional stages - The transitional stages ideally should be aimed at giving breakaway riders the chance to win a stage - The way the women's peleton ride probably means that 2 of these transitional stages will end up large group finishes - The history of the Giro Donne usually has 2 or three breakaways victories in a stage race - I wouldn't go for an ITT because it would have little influence on the podium finishers in GC - You may argue that you are denying the ITTer's their chance at glory BUT as Reusser showed this style of rider can still win a stage in another way.

I agree that two weeks should be the goal.

Sure most of the strong TTers will be able to win in different ways, but Van Dijk's hand were pretty tied up as a domestique this time. But the lack of ITTs is of course not just a TdFF issue.

 

[yaco]

Yes, that thank you to Gracie Elvin was lovely.



I agree that two weeks should be the goal.

Sure most of the strong TTers will be able to win in different ways, but Van Dijk's hand were pretty tied up as a domestique this time. But the lack of ITTs is of course not just a TdFF issue.

It is a joke that there is only ITT in the women's stage racing calendar at WT level - Will add that you need seven rider teams in GT's.

 

[sir fly]

I'd say that eight stages are enough for now.
The standings were settled after Saturday, and already Sunday was overdrive for the majority.
A week of fighting for survival wouldn't bring anything to anyone.

 

[Izzyeviel]

The easy way to expand for now would be to increase it to 9 stages by adding either a small TT/prologue either on the saturday using part of the mens course or have a split stage thing on Sunday - so you could have the two races like you had this year in Paris, & once the men have finished have a TT on the course at twilight.

 

[Andy262]

I'd say we need more strength in depth before stepping it up to two weeks. Too many of the teams are 100% all-in for one rider and that leads to breakaways that won't work together, rarely get a decent gap and can easily be run down by Ellen van Dijk.

DSM are a good illustration of the problem. Wiebes is currently so dominant in the sprints that their decent squad, Georgi, Lippert, Mackaij (when fit) almost exclusively ride to set up the sprint, even though all three of those riders would themselves be great breakaway riders.
Ditto J-V. Anna Henderson is a strong breakaway rider but rode mainly in the service of Vos.

Stronger breaks might force some of these teams to look for Plan B opportunities.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

The easy way to expand for now would be to increase it to 9 stages by adding either a small TT/prologue either on the saturday using part of the mens course or have a split stage thing on Sunday - so you could have the two races like you had this year in Paris, & once the men have finished have a TT on the course at twilight.

I don't think many riders like split stages, and there are not allowed in WWT races either, but I also think it could be an interesting way to include an ITT in the race.

 

[Kaptain Kool]

There are 10 stages in the Giro Donne almost every year. The TdFF (avec Zwift) can definitely add stages, especially if # of riders are increased. Even more so if they add a ITT, which would just be a wasted day anyhow.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I certainly won't rag on the format - it was almost literally exactly what I asked for and had been advocating for several years. The only thing I would have changed about the format was that I wanted a prologue on the Champs Elysées rather than a road stage à la La Course, meaning every individual rider would get their moment on the Champs, and also to then give various riders different targets around a day in yellow etc. as the early days went on. The rest of it, I was hoping for them to get the race going with a Paris-Nice type point to point race traditionally starting in Paris and ending somewhere else, so they could vary direction and plans year on year - but by always starting as the men finish, you could tie in the marketing, and so all of that was something I was very pleased with.

The other thing that's good about doing it this way is that it gives us some honest-to-god data about the amount of interest engendered by the race. It wasn't a warm-up race or something that fans might watch to get a visua for what the obstacles in the later men's race might look like, as sometimes would happen with La Course or some of the classics, but it was given the chance to swim by coming immediately after the Tour, with the precise line of advertising I was looking for - the men's race often attracts a lot of one-race-a-year fans because of its higher status that transcends the sport, so selling it on a 'not had enough of your cycling fix? Stay tuned for the next week for the women's Tour' line is a good way to push this forward; people like me, Samu, yaco, RHD and the others who regularly post in the women's cycling threads are likely to watch anyway because we're the ones watching the smaller races too, and while I'm not expecting a huge number of the 'true' July fans to stick around, I'd also expect that they could get together some stronger viewership than some of the smaller WWT races get on bonus streams when going up against major men's stage races.

From a pacing perspective, the fact the two mountain stages were the last two were a shame as the size of gaps created by those two stages were such that it rendered more or less the rest of the race moot (another reason to have the time trial), but from the perspective of trying to capture as much of that casual audience as possible it's the smartest choice. After all, mountain stage audiences vastly outstrip flat stages, TTs and the likes for attention and so placing these on the days with the largest potential audience is the no-brainer option.

The extending the race side of things is a double-edged sword, I think. Much as the true grimpeuse is kind of a rarity in women's cycling, because they have so few chances to really showcase their skills that they aren't priorities for signing or developing and only crop up in the results sheets in their playgrounds periodically unless they are consistent enough like an Erica Magnaldi or an Ane Santesteban to carve out a multi-year niche in the field (many of the best climbers are either straight up all-rounders like Annemiek, or puncheuse-grimpeuses like Cille and Kasia), the paucity of long-form stage races has hit the number of true stagehunters too, as there are few races long enough to create GC gaps big enough to allow stagehunters that are not GC riders chances to hone their skills, and recovery is not as prized. I may remember Ana Maria Covrig well for her annual escapades in the last few stages of the Giro once she was about an hour down on GC... but she never actually came all that close to winning any of those stages (and regarding those pure climbers, even the likes of Clara Koppenburg who have won some pretty decent level mountainous races are not targets of the superteams like SD Worx because of the limited number of race days where she'd be a preferred option).

I would like ideally in the medium to long term for there to be a two week type format, certainly - it would enable a much wider range of geographic options, it would enable them to have multiple blocks of decisive stages enabling breakaway stages to happen and more chances for stagehunting... but at the same time, we must be wary of overambition; that was what doomed ASO's interest in the original race they created, it was too big and long for the depth of talent there was at the time and ASO themselves swiftly lost interest, leading to the lengthy period of 'racing in the dark' (on occasion almost literally, like the time when they started the Grande Boucle Féminine in Corsica and storms meant their transfers back to mainland France were delayed and the ensuing day's stage took place way later than planned, seeing the last riders finishing after 10pm). Maybe trying to build it with a couple of preceding stages ahead of the Champs Elysées around the hilly areas near Paris would be possible, similar to what they did with the Ceratizit Challenge when they first expanded it beyond the Madrid circuit race, to copy the Giro format, or a prologue as mentioned to reflect the Tour de l'Aude format. I'd call for the Volta a Portugal format, but I think having a rest day immediately after the Champs Elysées or after only one further day of racing after that would be counterproductive as it would give the casual fans a day breaking the routine of watching the cycling and make it more likely for them not to tune back in, whereas with the racing being continuous from the final day of the men's race, you've got the best chance of keeping hold of at least a small part of that audience.

As was mentioned, perhaps HC stages would need to be Unipuerto (interestingly, in one of my drafts for La Vraie Course as I called it, when I was designing eight day women's TDF proposals when La Course was held on the Champs Elysées, I had an Alpe d'Huez MTF, in a Unipuerto stage, because I concurred that for a true HC it would need to be more or less Unipuerto - either literally a hockey stick profile, or one of those figuratively Unipuerto stages like, say, Ventoux 2009 with only cat.3 and 4 climbs first), but I would like them to do something like that with a format akin to the 2010 men's Giro Monte Grappa stage - pan flat, then up an HC climb and back down again to the finish - seeing as descents seem to be disproportionately important to time gaps in women's cycling compared to men's, even if we don't have Mara Abbott and Emma Pooley at the head of the field over the biggest summits any more. A stage with something like all flat then Joux-Plane into Morzine, like the Izoard La Course but descending into Briançon, or Mont-Noir into Saint-Marcellin, or, hell, I did think of climbing the southwest side of Madeleine as far as Saint-François-Longchamp then descending the south side of it to finish in La Chambre or Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne.

However they do it, I did like the thing the Giro did a few years ago of having its annual 'the classic climb of the year's race' feel, to try to make it feel less like the women were the redheaded stepchildren and let them carve their own legends at the historic sites of the sport. I know that was the thinking with PDBF this year, but PDBF's a modern fad climb which is still carving its legacy in the sport, much as ASO might want to claim it already has it. It doesn't even have to be key climbs, it could be the cobbles one year, for example, but I'm thinking about that casual audience as well, the ones that don't necessarily know who Louison Bobet or Federico Bahamontes are to know the historic value of certain climbs, and they certainly don't know all the places that Red Rick and I whine are better than the places the Tour does go... but they know what the Tourmalet and Alpe d'Huez are. Having a stage you can sell to those fans is useful in maintaining the audience - but also this is another race that ASO can use for innovation. Places that have not been able to host all the trappings of the Tour's caravan but can host, e.g. Paris-Nice or the Dauphiné, the women can go there, and try to carve their own historic sites too, like they did with San Domenico in Italy - only instead of that being done on the cheap by the smaller race organisation committee using trademarks under licence from RCS, it can be done with the explicit backing of the major organiser.

 

[Izzyeviel]

what is an unipuerto stage anyway?

 

[Jumbo Visma Fan :)]

what is an unipuerto stage anyway?

One mountain, cat 1 or HC, and it’s the finish.

 

[Red Rick]

what is an unipuerto stage anyway?

 

[awavey]

There's hyperbole in the men's coverage, too. How many times per broadcast does a GCN commentator state that today's racing is completely different than any time in history? At least 5 times per hour. And according to Rob Hatch, the 2020 Giro (men) had 17 Rides of the Century. It's creating excitement for some, prompting the mute button for others. Such is life.

maybe its just it was more noticeable in the TDFF, I tend to have races like the Giro/TdF on in the background so can blank the inane commentary out, where as I was watching the TdFF more intently and hitting the mute button alot more.

I dont think the hyperbole style they went for, and you get Dani Rowe stating it was the highlight of her cycling career, not winning Gold medal at a home Olympics, not being world champion, its commentating on that race, you know its like ok where do you go from here then, is next year going to be even more incroyable and historique to describe. but it appears to be the modern way in television.

whilst IMO the thing is 5 years, 10 years from now when we look back to this years race, I think the mens race will be remembered as one of the classics of the race, whilst we'll look at this and go yeah it was the first (for a while) and Annemiek won by more than 3mins, geez that must have been dull to watch, the race the post stage interviews were more memorable than the actual stages.

I think the race should increase to 10 stages, but not two weeks yet, it needs to grow its fanbase steadily, not try to get too big too fast, Id be interested to know how many people at the finish yesterday werent just sponsor invited guests.

but there you go I guess we wont see anymore live coverage this year till the La Vuelta crit

 

[Jumbo Visma Fan :)]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1554187108079869956

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/ammattipyoraily/status/1554187108079869956

Viewership wise, are these numbers good? I don’t really know, though as an American a good comparison to these numbers is NASCAR.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1554187108079869956

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/ammattipyoraily/status/1554187108079869956

Viewership wise, are these numbers good? I don’t really know, though as an American a good comparison to these numbers is NASCAR.

Pretty decent I'd say.

Compared to the men the queen stage did a little over half what the men did, but it is of course worth noting that Alpe d'Huez was on a weekday while PDBF for the women was on a Sunday, however it was the Bastille Day stage so the fact we are dealing with only the French figures means it should be a fair comparison.

This year’s edition of cycling’s Tour de France pulled in 41.5 million viewers on French public service broadcaster France Télévisions (FTV).


The figure is the biggest Tour de France audience for the network’s main channel since 2011.


Four race stages on FTV exceeded five million viewers, compared to two in 2021. Of that, 6.4 million watched the Briançon-Alpe d’Huez stage, marking the biggest audience for the stage since 2003.

Tour de France attracts 41.5m viewers for France Télévisions - SportsPro

Public service broadcaster France Télévisions lands its biggest audience for cycling's Tour de France since 2011.

www.sportspromedia.com

Cycling Weekly also confirms France 3 got 2,8 million for stage 3, which is pretty solid.

 

[jmdirt]

It sounds like an exciting weekend of racing! I was off the grid so I didn't see/hear anything until today.

 

[Izzyeviel]

It sounds like an exciting weekend of racing! I was off the grid so I didn't see/hear anything until today.

It was quite old school as well. Even the tv coverage - we missed the best bits!

 

[yaco]

It was quite old school as well. Even the tv coverage - we missed the best bits!

The issue with missing the key move of stage 7 of the TDF Femmes is also common in the men's peleton - For example, if we look at weekend stages of PN and Dauphine the early and decisive move is often missed before live coverage begins.

 

[RobertCrawley]

One interesting thing that was pointed on the Cycling Podcast is that the TdFF had instantly become the most important women’s race on the calendar. The TdF appears to confer prestige and enormous crowds, and the succeed is a solid foundation for increased sponsorship and coverage. It’s also great to see women riders experience such enthusiasm.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

One interesting thing that was pointed on the Cycling Podcast is that the TdFF had instantly become the most important women’s race on the calendar. The TdF appears to confer prestige and enormous crowds, and the succeed is a solid foundation for increased sponsorship and coverage. It’s also great to see women riders experience such enthusiasm.

Why do you think they chose now to come in, immediately after the Giro was weakened and is having to re-establish itself? Precisely for the purpose that they would be the most important women's race on the calendar. ASO were only interested in playing if they were going to win, i.e. they were only going to instigate a women's Tour once they were certain it would be the most important race.

They were always going to be immediately at a high importance level because it's, you know, the Tour de France, but there was always the concern that if the race didn't immediately succeed or if RCS bailed out the women's Giro by committing to it, the higher level of tradition and history of the Giro may mean the Corsa Rosa wins out in the long run for prestige if riders, teams, fans or all of the above didn't trust ASO to go all in on it - and given previous attempts at a women's Tour, and the way La Course has shifted as a race, that was always a risk. But ,coming in when the Giro's prestige has taken a hit, and having utilised the best calendar spot for casual audience eyes and their far superior resources when it comes to pushing the race in the media and gaining coverage and exposure, meant they were always likely to come out the gate hot here, giving the race the hard sell and pulling out all the stops to ensure that even if the Giro gets full RCS backing, they're behind the 8-ball when it comes to competing with the Tour even with 30 years' more history and tradition.

Again, it's the marginalisation of those who kept women's cycling alive as a passion project through the 'racing in the dark' era, and it's truly bittersweet. It's great to see the big guns of the sport supporting women's cycling and it's far more sustainable and garners far greater exposure and support and helps more women make a living from the sport and improves its professionalism no end, but it's also chewing up and spitting out those who truly cared in favour of the bigger corporations where you're never sure how much of the commitment is genuine interest and how much is ticking a corporate social responsibility box, and stripping the calendar of a lot of the races that had been specifically women's races in favour of a facsimile of the men's calendar.

Peter van den Veen wrote a very interesting article along those lines a few years ago, about being careful what you wish for in the women's calendar, when Amstel Gold returned to the calendar. Thankfully, thus far the fears expressed in that article have not come to fruition and hopefully the winds of change have been blowing for long enough now that the worst case scenario described would be almost impossible, but it does illustrate some of the difficulties of the long-time women's cycling fans have had in trusting the ASOs and RCSs of this world, and a fear of letting go of the crutch of those privateer organisers who didn't have the means but would do everything in their power - and who would be needed to pick up the pieces if the big organisers' interest turns out to be evanescent and fleeting.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Why do you think they chose now to come in, immediately after the Giro was weakened and is having to re-establish itself? Precisely for the purpose that they would be the most important women's race on the calendar. ASO were only interested in playing if they were going to win, i.e. they were only going to instigate a women's Tour once they were certain it would be the most important race.

They were always going to be immediately at a high importance level because it's, you know, the Tour de France, but there was always the concern that if the race didn't immediately succeed or if RCS bailed out the women's Giro by committing to it, the higher level of tradition and history of the Giro may mean the Corsa Rosa wins out in the long run for prestige if riders, teams, fans or all of the above didn't trust ASO to go all in on it - and given previous attempts at a women's Tour, and the way La Course has shifted as a race, that was always a risk. But ,coming in when the Giro's prestige has taken a hit, and having utilised the best calendar spot for casual audience eyes and their far superior resources when it comes to pushing the race in the media and gaining coverage and exposure, meant they were always likely to come out the gate hot here, giving the race the hard sell and pulling out all the stops to ensure that even if the Giro gets full RCS backing, they're behind the 8-ball when it comes to competing with the Tour even with 30 years' more history and tradition.

Again, it's the marginalisation of those who kept women's cycling alive as a passion project through the 'racing in the dark' era, and it's truly bittersweet. It's great to see the big guns of the sport supporting women's cycling and it's far more sustainable and garners far greater exposure and support and helps more women make a living from the sport and improves its professionalism no end, but it's also chewing up and spitting out those who truly cared in favour of the bigger corporations where you're never sure how much of the commitment is genuine interest and how much is ticking a corporate social responsibility box, and stripping the calendar of a lot of the races that had been specifically women's races in favour of a facsimile of the men's calendar.

Peter van den Veen wrote a very interesting article along those lines a few years ago, about being careful what you wish for in the women's calendar, when Amstel Gold returned to the calendar. Thankfully, thus far the fears expressed in that article have not come to fruition and hopefully the winds of change have been blowing for long enough now that the worst case scenario described would be almost impossible, but it does illustrate some of the difficulties of the long-time women's cycling fans have had in trusting the ASOs and RCSs of this world, and a fear of letting go of the crutch of those privateer organisers who didn't have the means but would do everything in their power - and who would be needed to pick up the pieces if the big organisers' interest turns out to be evanescent and fleeting.

With the seeming success of the first edition and the Zwift money, the future of the race is at least secured for another three years, and then we'll see what happens.

I'm not sure RCS could ever really have achieved the same results, if they had taken over the Giro Donne, because the Tour is what it is, but if they, as rumoured, actually gets involved from now on, they might benefit from ASO's work.

 

[Axel Hangleck]

It was a success, and was as good as we could have dared hope. I won't go overboard, as that can be counter productive. I wouldn't be against a ITT, In fact I'd say it needs to be in. There has to be something in for all riders, and I'd make one of the mountain stages finish with a descent.
However, I'd leave it at 8 days for the next 5 years, and then reassess. At the moment, there isn't the depth in the field to go for a longer race - but give it time. I also think some of the other stage races need to help in setting harder courses, where possible.

And one final point; there needs to be a larger gap between the Giro Donne, and TdFF; both races inside a month is madness, and can't continue, especially if the latter becomes a longer race.

 

[yaco]

Think the ITT needed to be before the Mountain stage and ideally in stage two or three - This could lead to many battles to get hold of the yellow jersey.